British Pakistani Grooming Gangs: Myths and Facts

American billionaire and President-Elect Donald Trump's confidante Elon Musk's recent tweets have revived the allegations by the far right that the British Pakistani gangs are mainly responsible for sex crimes against children in the United Kingdom.  Earlier, these claims were repeated by former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman when she said in a television interview that child grooming gangs in the UK were “almost all British-Pakistani”.  This claim elicited a strong response by British Press regulator  IPSO which said that Braverman’s decision to link “the identified ethnic group and a particular form of offending was significantly misleading” because the (British) Home Office’s own research had concluded offenders were mainly from white backgrounds. The British Home Office Report on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation (December 2021) said that while some high-profile cases involved men of Pakistani ethnicity (2%), the academic literature suggests that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white (88%), according to Professor Tahid Abbas's blog for the London School of Economics. 

Grooming Gang Sex Crimes Stats. Source: Financial Times

Let's examine what the official statistics reveal about sex crimes in England and Wales.  It shows that grooming gangs account for a small fraction (3.7%) of child sexual abuse, even when looking just at group offending. In 2023, there were 4,428 reported offline sexual offenses committed by groups, according to official data for England and Wales published in November, the first time a detailed breakdown has been made available. These accounted for 3.7% of all child sexual abuse crimes.  Of these crimes, grooming gangs — organized networks of criminals who target children — accounted for 17%, or 717 crimes, according to the Financial Times. 

Sex Crimes Against British Children. Source: UK Ministry of Justice Via LSE

In terms of ethnicity, Pakistani defendants account for 2% (same as their proportion in the general population) of all defendants charged with sex crimes against children. White defendants make up 88%, proportionally more than the 83% of their numbers in general population in England and Wales, according to the UK Ministry of Justice. 

Group-based child abuse represents less than 1% of sex crimes against children. Pakistanis account for 3.9% in this specific category, according to the UK Police Chiefs Council.  The figure rises for Pakistani offenders to 13.7% if you remove institutional groups, such as sports groups, schools and church-based group offenders, and group child abuse committed in a family setting.

Clearly, the British government data doesn't support the allegations made by former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman and tweeted by Elon Musk. So what is their motivation for it? The only conclusion one can draw is that both Braverman and Musk are motivated by Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. The demonization of Muslim men has become a common theme in public discourse, with a “Muslim bashing” mentality, particularly among the far right groups in the West. 

It is important to mention that British Pakistanis who make up just 2% of the general population represent 3.7% of all British doctors. 

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The Reign of Queen Elizabeth II Saw the Sun Set on the British Empire

Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) died this week. The sun set on the British Empire during her reign that began in 1952. The dismantling of the empire had already started with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 before she ascended to the throne. It continued in the 1950s and 60s with dozens of nations in Asia and Africa declaring their independence. British colonialism was soon replaced by western neocolonialism led by the United States. Black and brown people continue to suffer from the scourge of racism in a world dominated by white Europeans. Corrupt ruling elites with colonized minds ensure that true decolonization does not occur in the former British colonies. They treat their own people with the same disdain as did their former colonial bosses. The struggle for true independence continues. 

Haq Family With British Royal Family at Madame Tussauds in London

Economic Extraction:

When the British arrived in Mughal India, the country's share of the world GDP was 25%, about the same as the US share of the world GDP today. By 1947, the undivided India's share of world GDP ($4 trillion in 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars) had shrunk to about 6% (India: $216 billion, Pakistan: $24 billion). As of 2010, South Asia's contribution to world GDP further shrank to about 4%, according to British Economist Angus Maddison. 

Divide and Rule Policy: 

Colonial-era British historians deliberately distorted the history of Indian Muslim rule to vilify Muslim rulers as part of the British policy to divide and conquer India, says American history professor Audrey Truschke, in her book "Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King". These misrepresentations of Muslim rule made during the British Raj appear to have been accepted as fact not just by Islamophobic Hindu Nationalists but also by at least some of the secular Hindus in India and Muslim intellectuals in present day Pakistan, says the author.  Aurangzeb was neither a saint nor a villain; he was a man of his time who should be judged by the norms of his times and compared with his contemporaries, the author adds. Hindutva today is among the worst legacies of the British Raj. 

Legacy of Major Conflicts:

Major conflicts in South Asia and the Middle East are a legacy of the final days of British rule. Among these are Kashmir and Palestine. 

Kashmir today is seen as a major flashpoint for a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The rise of Hindutva, also a legacy of the British Raj, has increased the risk of such a devastating conflict. Vast majority of Indians, including those who oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi, believe that nuclear war is "winnable", according to the results of a Stimson Center poll released recently. They want their country to build a bigger nuclear arsenal than China and Pakistan combined.  Responding to the clamor for more nukes,  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in 2019 that Indian nuclear weapons were not kept as mere showpieces.  

Colonized Minds:

Pakistan achieved independence from British colonial rule 75 years ago. However, the minds of most of Pakistan's elites remain colonized to this day.  This seems to be particularly true of the nation's western-educated "liberals" who dominate much of the intellectual discourse in the country. They continue to look at their fellow countrymen through the eyes of the Orientalists who served as tools for western colonization of Asia, Middle East and Africa. The work of these "native" Orientalists available in their books, op ed columns and other publications reflects their utter contempt for Pakistan and Pakistanis. Their colonized minds uncritically accept all things western. They often seem to think that the Pakistanis can do nothing right while the West can do no wrong. Far from being constructive, these colonized minds promote lack of confidence in the ability of their fellow "natives" to solve their own problems and contribute to hopelessness. The way out of it is to encourage more inquiry based learning and critical thinking.

Summary:

Queen Elizabeth's passing represents the end of an era that saw the sun set on the British Empire. Among the legacies of the British rule are racism and slavery that continue to be manifested in the new era of western neocolonialism. Major conflicts created by colonial powers in South Asia and the Middle East continue to threaten world peace. Former colonies continue to be ruled by corrupt elites with colonized minds who treat their own people with utter contempt. Their struggle for true independence continues. 

Here's an interesting discussion of the legacy of the British Raj in India as seen by writer-diplomat Shashi Tharoor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN2Owcwq6_M




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Racial Slurs Hurled at Pakistani-American Doctor in a Public Hearing in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis County Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan, a Pakistani American, was subjected to racial abuse at a St. Louis County Council meeting, according to multiple media reports. He apparently got caught up in the middle of a fierce, angry debate on new mask mandates amid surging infections attributed to the Delta variant of the COVID19 virus that originated in India. The anti-mask crowd is particularly strong in Republican states that voted for former President Donald J. Trump.  

Dr. Faisal Khan

Dr. Khan was subjected to racial slurs and physically assaulted after defending a new mask mandate to combat COVID-19.  In response to the abuse, he raised his middle finger at a crowd gathered at a St. Louis County Council meeting, according to a Wednesday letter obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “After being physically assaulted, called racial slurs and surrounded by an angry mob, I expressed my displeasure by using my middle finger toward an individual who had physically threatened me and called me racist slurs,” Khan wrote to Councilwoman Rita Heard Days who led the meeting.

“You asked us to stay home,” Rita Heard Days, the council chairwoman, told the director of the county’s public health department before voting to lift the mask mandate. “You asked us to put on masks. You asked us to stay six feet apart,” she said. “We have followed your orders, and yet we are still in a predicament. So something is not working.”  In an apparent reference to the rapid spread of the highly transmissible delta variant in the United States, Dr. Faisal Khan told her that the virus has changed.

While testifying, Dr. Khan said members of the crowd mocked his accent. As he left, Khan said he was shoulder-bumped, then surrounded by a crowd and called a racial slur. He also called out Councilman Tim Fitch for what Khan described as a xenophobic dog-whistle in asking Khan about his credentials. “Dr. Khan, we certainly have heard of your background before, but most here have not,” Fitch said during the meeting. “Can you tell us why you’re called Dr. Khan? Are you a physician in the United States?”

Dr. Faisal Khan is among thousands of Pakistani-American doctors who have been at the forefront of saving lives in the middle of the devastating COVID19 pandemic that has taken over half a million American lives so far. Among them is Dr. Syra Madad, Pakistani-American head of New York City’s Health and Hospitals System-wide Special Pathogens Program, who is featured in a 6-part Netflix documentary series "Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak".

Pakistani-American doctors are the 3rd largest among foreign-educated doctors in America. Among the notable names of Pakistani-American doctors engaged in the fight against Covid-19 are: Dr. Saud Anwar in Connecticut, Dr. Gul Zaidi in New York and Dr. Umair Shah in Texas. Their work has received positive media coverage in recent weeks.

Dr. Saud Anwar, a Connecticut pulmonologist and state senator, came up with a ventilator splitter to deal with the shortages of life-saving equipment. Dr. Gul Zaidi, an acute-care pulmonologist in Long Island, was featured in a CBS 60 Minutes segment on how the doctors are dealing with unprecedented demands to save lives. Dr. Umair Shah was interviewed about his work by ABC TV affiliate in Houston, Texas.

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Racism in America; Coronavirus in Pakistan; China in Ladakh

Is the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis Police Officer symptomatic of a deeper problem in American society? Is the Trump phenomenon the result of ingrained racism in America? Is racism rooted in America's original sin of slavery?  Is it time to openly acknowledge and address it? Is it time for greater social change beyond the emancipation proclamation of 1860s and the civil rights legislation of 1960s? Is wide participation of white American protesters in recent marches a clear call for action by top leadership in the White House and the US Congress?

George Floyd Memorialized By Pakistani Truck Artist Haider Ali

What is the status and the trajectory of coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan? How widespread are the infections? What does COVID19 and antibodies testing tell us? Is easing of lockdown justified? How long a lockdown can Pakistan's poor afford? What is the alternative? Can mandatory face mask slow down the spread? Is there a right balance between lives and livelihoods?

Why is India so isolated? Have Modi's actions contributed to Chinese aggressive response in Ladakh? Did revocation of article 370 provoke China? Where does America stand on the situation in Ladakh? Will Trump before his offer to mediate between India and China? Is the current China-India standoff an opportunity for Pakistan like the one in 1962 when the Indian military was on the run? Can Pakistan take advantage of it?

Despardes with Faraz Darvesh host discusses these questions with Raza Rumi, Misbah Azam and Riaz Haq.

https://youtu.be/sTUrkPh5zeU

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Trump's Backtrack on Muslim Ban; India's Map Law; Pakistan Commission on Corruption

Donald Trump has said his Muslim ban "hasn't been called for yet" and it was "only a suggestion". Is the presumptive Republican nominee for president backing away from his call "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States"? If so, why? Has the Republican party helped him understand how the GOP's dog-whistle campaigns work? Will Trump's racism and Islamophobia become less overt now in the general election campaign? Has London Mayoral Election affected GOP's campaign?

Why is the Indian government pushing a highly punitive legislation for those found guilty of "incorrect maps of India" not showing all of Kashmir as part of India? Will the law also apply to the Hindu Nationalists pushing maps of Akhand Bharat, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, which are patently incorrect? How will digital mapmakers try to not run afoul of this law if it passes the Indian parliament?

Why is the Chief Justice of Pakistan resisting "the constitution of a toothless commission" to probe offshore companies owned by Pakistani politicians and others including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family? Why did Chief Justice Jamali say that such a commission "will serve no useful purpose , except giving a bad name to it"?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Misbah Azam discusses these questions with panelists Ali Hasan Cemendtaur and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com).


https://youtu.be/eEQg1CX5KGs






http://dai.ly/x4akylh



Trump's Backtrack on Muslim Ban; India's Map... by ViewpointFromOverseas
https://vimeo.com/166681565


Trump's Backtrack on Muslim Ban; India's Map Law; Pakistan Commission on Corruption from Ikolachi on Vimeo.

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Questioning American Muslim Teen Ahmed Mohammad's Move to Qatar

14-year-old American Muslim kid Ahmed Mohamed is moving to Qatar with his family. His attempt to impress his teacher with a homemade clock put him in jail in handcuffs when his teacher at his school in Irving, Texas, thought it was a bomb and called the police.

The story made headlines in western and international media and brought widespread condemnation of the anti-Muslim bigotry in his hometown.  There was also an outpouring of support for him from Silicon Valley tech titans who invited Ahmed to their campuses. President Obama tweeted his support for Ahmed and invited him to the White House.

The Dallas Morning News has reported that top schools from across the United States had tried to woo Mohamed, but it was the Qatari offer “that most intrigued the family.” The newspaper reported that Mohamed will study at the Doha Academy while his siblings find schools in Doha, the Qatari capital.

The news has intrigued me as well. I have friends and relatives from Pakistan who have been living and working in Qatar and other oil-rich Arab nations for several years. Although they are well educated and probably financially better off than they would be in Pakistan, they resent the fact that they are paid less than their white colleagues doing same or similar work. In the event that they lose their jobs, they would have to pack up and leave Qatar at very short notice. Even their Qatari born children have no rights there; they would have to leave with them. If Ahmed and his family think they are escaping racism in America, they will find much more of it in their new home in Qatar, with no bill of rights or  civil rights groups or independent courts to protect them.

There are several questions that I suggest Ahmed's father ponder as he prepares to move to Qatar along with Ahmed and the rest of the family:

1. When was the last time Qatar's Emir spoke out against wrongs done to the children of foreign-born residents of his country as President of the United States did for Ahmad?

2. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) spoke out for Ahmed when he was subjected to abuse in Texas. Are there any civil rights organizations like CAIR in Qatar?

3. What chance does Ahmed have of realizing his full potential in Qatar as Pakistan-born Shahid Khan, India-born Vinod Khosla and many immigrants or children of immigrants have in the United States?

Even if Ahmed's father persists in his folly, he can have some comfort in the fact that the United States will still go to bat for him and his family because they carry US passports. And they can return to United States as American citizens when Qatar decides to expel them.

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Altaf-Zardari Predicament; Charleston Shooting; Pakistani Hindus

Why are PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and top MQM leader Altaf Husain lashing out at the Pakistan Army? What is it that they fear?  Will they face prosecution for alleged crimes? How will their reactions shape Pakistan's and Sindh's politics? Where will it lead the country?

Why did a young white male shot to death 9 Black worshippers at AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina? Is this a act of terrorism? What role did race play in this tragedy? Did lack of any gun control contribute to the scale of this massacre? Has racist terror in America claimed many times more lives than "Islamic" terror since 911? Will FBI now focus on it more vigorously than"Islamic" terror in America? Will it give impetus to renewed gun control efforts?

How is Pakistani Hindu population doing? Is it really declining rapidly as frequent headlines proclaim? Or is it increasing faster than the general population in Pakistan? What does the recent Pew survey show?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Misbah Azam discusses these and other questions with Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com):

https://vimeo.com/131394960


Viewpoint from Overseas June 20, 2015 from WBT TV on Vimeo.

https://youtu.be/pGtOAFXGwGs





http://dai.ly/x2v6sdd



Viewpoint from Overseas June 20, 2015 by ViewpointFromOverseas

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World Values Survey Finds Indians Most Racist

43.5% of Indians, the highest percentage in the world, say they do not want to have a neighbor of a different race, according to a Washington Post report based on World's Values Survey.

About Pakistan, the report says that  "although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch".

Housing Discrimination: 

It appears that there is a small but militant minority in Pakistan that is highly intolerant, but the vast majority of people are tolerant. My own experience as a  former Karachi-ite  is that there is little or no race or religion based housing segregation, the kind that is rampant in India where Muslims are not welcome in most Hindu-dominated neighborhoods. There have been many reports of top Muslim Bollywood stars having difficulty finding housing in Mumbai's upscale neighborhoods. A common excuse used to exclude them is the ostensible requirement to be vegetarian to live there.

Source: World Values Survey and Washington Post

Hate Against Indian Muslims:

The idea of racial purity is central to Hindu nationalists in India who have a long history of admiration for Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader, including his "Final Solution".

In his book "We" (1939), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the leader of the Hindu Nationalist RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) wrote, "To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

Caste-based Apartheid:

While Golwalar's principal target in the above paragraph were Indian Muslims, the treatment of lower caste Hindus in India also falls in the category of racism. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) now includes discrimination based on caste. Dating back to 1969, the ICERD convention has been ratified by 173 countries, including India. Despite this, and despite the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights reiterating that discrimination based on work and descent is a form of racial discrimination, the Indian government's stand on this issue has remained the same: caste is not race.

Over 250 million people are victims of caste-based discrimination and segregation in India. They live miserable lives, shunned by much of society because of their ranks as untouchables or Dalits at the bottom of a rigid caste system in Hindu India. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in slave-like conditions, and routinely abused, even killed, at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection, according to Human Rights Watch.

Gandhi's Disdain for Black Africans:

It's not just the Hindu Nationalists who are racists. Even Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mahatma or the Great Soul, was not immune to Indians' racist tendencies. In 1908, recording his first experience in a South African prison, Gandhi referred to black South Africans as "kaffirs". According Joseph Lelyveld, the author of "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India", Gandhi wrote: "We were then marched off to prison intended for kaffirs. ..we could understand not being classed with the whites, but to be placed with the Natives seemed too much to put up with. It is indubitably right that Indians should have separate cells."

Summary:

The findings of World's Values Survey on India are well-supported by other evidence such as the Hindutva ideology as spelled out by RSS leader Golwalkar, the existence of widespread caste-based discrimination classified as racism by the United Nations and lots of other anecdotal evidence. Just this month, Indian racism was on full display at a lavish Indian wedding in South Africa where guests flown in from India refused to be served by black waiters and drivers.

Let me conclude this post with a video interview of Professor Ahmad Hasan Dani who attended Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and studied archaeology, and said that he was ostracized and treated as a pariah by Hindu students and faculty at BHU. He was not allowed to sit and eat with his fellow students, he was asked to keep his plates and dishes separate in his room, and required to stand outside the dining hall to be served his meal and then wash the dishes himself. Later, when he graduated at the top of the archaeology class, he was offered a faculty position, but the University head and former president of India Radhakrishnan told him that he would be paid a salary but he would not be allowed to teach. Here is a video clip of late Prof Dani talking about it with Farah Husain on Morning with Farah TV show:


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Stop Violence Against Indians in Australia!

There has been a slew of apparently racially-motivated attacks targeting Indians, resulting in the tragic stabbing death of a young Indian student Nitin Garg in Australia this week.

Last year also saw several vicious attacks on Indians, including the use of a petrol bomb thrown at an Indian young man sitting in his house, sending shock waves throughout the Indian community in Australia. Protest marches were organized in both Melbourne and Sydney. Spontaneous street rallies happened in Harris Park, a suburb of western Sydney with a large Indian population. The protests drew attention of the international media, with coverage in India especially widespread and critical of Australia. Representatives of the Indian government met with the Australian government officials to express concerns and demand that Indians be protected. The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, expressed regret and called for the attackers to be brought to justice. And yet, there seems to be no end in sight. Just yesterday, another student Jaspreet Singh was set on fire and he suffered 20 per cent burns including on his arms, chest and face.

Indian students make up the second largest group, after the Chinese, of foreign students in Australia for their graduate education. From 2004 to 2009 the number of Indians studying in Australia rose from 30,000 to 97,000 with 45,000 of these living in Melbourne, 32,000 in Adelaide and the remainder in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, according to a Wikipedia entry. Some come from the rural parts of India, with most coming to Australia to seek permanent residency. The cost of living in Australian cities has made it necessary for many of these students to live in cheaper and more distant suburbs, where there is an increased risk of encountering violent crime.

In spite of the regularity of brutal attacks singling out Indian immigrants, the Australian authorities continue to downplay, even deny the racial angle. Unless such crimes are treated as hate crimes and seriously prosecuted and punished, it is likely that the crime wave will continue, and probably get worse.

These attacks are a reminder to all South Asians and others of foreign origins living in the West, including North America, Europe and Australia, that intolerance, racism and xenophobia are alive and well in many parts of the world. Xenophobia, in particular, continues to rear its ugly head in various forms, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. We must condemn it in all its various forms in our own best interest.

Let me conclude with a famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemoeller:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out.

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Dalit Victims of Apartheid in India

Over 250 million people are victims of caste-based discrimination and segregation in India. They live miserable lives, shunned by much of society because of their ranks as untouchables or Dalits at the bottom of a rigid caste system in Hindu India. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in slave-like conditions, and routinely abused, even killed, at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection, according to Human Rights Watch.

In what has been called Asia's hidden apartheid, entire villages in many Indian states remain completely segregated by caste. Caste-based abuse is also found in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Japan, and several African states.

In support of its assertions of Dalit abuse in India, the Human Rights Watch has documented the following abuses:

* Over 100,000 cases of rape, murder, arson, and other atrocities against Dalits are reported in India each year. Given that Dalits are both reluctant and unable (for lack of police cooperation) to report crimes against themselves, the actual number of abuses is presumably much higher.

* India's own agencies have reported that these cases are typically related to attempts by Dalits to defy the social order, or demand minimum wages and their basic human rights. Many of the atrocities are committed by the police. Even perpetrators of large-scale massacres have escaped prosecution.

* An estimated forty million people in India, among them fifteen million children, are bonded laborers, working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off a debt. A majority of them are Dalits.

* According to government statistics, an estimated one million Dalits are manual scavengers who clear feces from public and private latrines and dispose of dead animals; unofficial estimates are much higher.

* The sexual slavery of Dalit girls and women continues to receive religious sanction. Under the devadasi system, thousands of Dalit girls in India's southern states are ceremoniously dedicated or married to a deity or to a temple. Once dedicated, they are unable to marry, forced to become prostitutes for upper-caste community members, and eventually auctioned into an urban brothel.

Although there are laws in India to deal with caste-related problems of bonded labor, manual scavenging, devadasi, and other atrocities against Dalit community members, the reality is that such laws are widely ignored by the law-enforcement agencies and the perpetrators.

Source: World Values Survey and Washington Post

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) now includes discrimination based on caste. Dating back to 1969, the ICERD convention has been ratified by 173 countries, including India. Despite this, and despite the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights reiterating that discrimination based on work and descent is a form of racial discrimination, the Indian government's stand on this issue has remained the same: caste is not race.

Ms. Navi Pillay, the South African judge who became the United Nations high commissioner for human rights last year, recently told Barbara Crossette of the Nation a story about a group of women who came to her in Geneva recently with a brick from a latrine they had torn down in protest against being forced to carry away human excrement in their bare hands. They wanted to make the point that despite India's frequent assertions that untouchables," who call themselves Dalits ("broken people"), were no longer condemned by birth to do this job, there were still tens of thousands of such latrines in the country, and the filthy, soul-destroying work continues.



Judge Pillay, a South African citizen of Indian descent, now wants to force the issue of caste the UN. "This is the year 2009, and people have been talking about caste oppression for more than a hundred years," Pillay says. "It's time to move on this issue."

Caste is now on notice: the UN has failed, she said, to educate people and change mindsets to combat the taint of caste. "How long is the cycle going to go on where those who can do something about it say, We can't, because it's the people, it's their tradition; we have to go slowly.

"Slavery and apartheid could be removed, so now [caste] can be removed through an international expression of outrage."

Here is a video about Dalits in India:

https://youtu.be/3Dd2g9VLv8Q




Related Links:

Fixing Sanitation Crisis in India

Slavery Survives in South Asia
India Deploys 100,000 Soldiers Against Maoists

Persistent Hunger in South Asia

Female Literacy Lags Behind in India

Female Genocide Unfolding in India

Blue Collar Bigotry in US Presidential Race

As the election strategists, media pundits and "independent" analysts pore over the results of the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, there is hardly any overt mention of racism, the big elephant in the room.

President Clinton has been making a skillful use of the race card in supporting his wife's bid for the presidency. After the South Carolina primary, Mr. Clinton compared Obama's win with Jesse Jackson's win against him in the 1990s. At a rally of mostly blue collar white audience recently, the former President said that the voters will have to decide whether they prefer "a feeling of change" or "facts of change" -- a clear dig at Hillary Clinton's opponent Barack Obama. Real change, he added, is especially important here Pennsylvania. As Der Spiegel reported in early April, Jim Miller, a blue collar caucasian member of the audience smiled awkwardly and said something that many here in Reading are extremely reluctant to admit: "There is still racism here." He points to the crowd in the gymnasium and says: "Many, many racists."

The recent reports of Obama's pastor's inflammatory speeches, and Obama's remarks about rural America "clinging to guns and religion" have not helped, either. In his "race in America" speech, Barack Obama talked about many issues that hit a nerve in a place like Reading. He said that when whites suffering from unemployment and poverty blame blacks for their misery, they are not necessarily racist. Conversely, he also said that discrimination doesn’t just exist in the imagination of blacks.

According to a report in Der Spiegel, the speech "opened Pandora's Box," said John Forester, the news editor for a Pennsylvania paper, the Reading Eagle. Forester is convinced that the speech put race squarely in the center of the campaign, and he considers cities like Reading to be accurate test cases on whether a black candidate can prevail. He is not optimistic. Obama's inspiring speech, says Forester, was "political suicide."

In my own personal experience as a South Asian immigrant, I have seen that racism is alive and well in blue collar white America, even as the racism has declined among better educated urban whites. The blue collar neighborhoods in New York, Chicago and other major cities on the East Coast and the Midwest are some of the most racially segregated. There have been many high-profile racially motivated incidents of violence, such as the Howard Beach killings and Chicago south side riots, that characterize life in blue collar America.

Recent polls indicate that as many as a third of those who voted for Hilary Clinton would vote for John McCain if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee for President.

As is often said, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." However, I do believe that better educated population is better for America, as it is elsewhere in the world. By voting for Obama in large numbers, the high-earning college educated whites have shown that race is not relevant for leadership. Education will help fix racism, poverty and many other ills in society.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, I think America has come a long way since Martin Luther King's civil rights marches in the 1960s. I do hope Obama wins and makes history this year. But if he does not, he is still young. He will get more chances in the future to rise to the highest office in America. Hopefully, America will be further along in race relations with better education and understanding among the races, regardless of class.