back
(Jan 9, 2013)
Dalit activist Marimuthu Bharathan

Passport refused to receive Dutch Human Rights Award

The struggle of Marimuthu Bharathan against oppression of Dalits in India


Human Rights Tulip Ward Indian winner Marimuthu Bharathan, a Dalit activist from Tamil Nadu, cannot receive the Dutch Human Rights Tulip in person as he did not get a passport. Bharathan was supposed to be handed the Tulip Award for human rights defenders by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Frans Timmermans on the 9th of January 2013. The passport refusal is another example of the disenfranchised position of the 200 million Dalits and the defenders of their rights in India. The Indian authorities clearly fail in combating discrimination and exclusion of Dalits and are themselves often the perpetrator of crimes against them.

It is the second year in a row that the Human Rights Tulip – awarded by an independent jury - cannot be given to the winner in person. Last year this person was the Chinese activist Ni Yulan who was in custody awaiting trial for her work on behalf of citizens of Beijing whose houses were confiscated and demolished in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games. This year it is Marimuthu Bharathan, an activist and Dalit himself who works for the rights of Dalits, formerly known as ‘untouchables’’ or ‘outcastes’. The reason for the refusal to renew his passport seems to be a – according to Indian human rights organizations – false accusation of murder. On the 9th of January a ceremony will take place in his absence where the jury will motivate her choice and Minister Timmermans will give his views on the issue.

Bharathan was arrested in May 2009 because he was supposed to be involved in the murder of a man called Madhan who himself was being accused of murdering a large number of Dalits. The police subsequently arrested more than 20 Dalits from surrounding villages. Bharathan came to support them in order to help them to tell their side of the story. According to the Indian organization Human Rights Defenders’ Alert – India a forced written statement was obtained from another accused who was already in jail. The result was a false accusation against Mr. Bharathan as the 25th accused allegedly being involved in the murder of Madhan. He was locked up for a few weeks and later released on bail. In the meantime the court case against the 25 accused, including Bharathan, is already pending for years.

UN Rapporteur: ‘Deeply disturbed’
The life story of Bharathan is one illustration of the situation of the defenders of the human rights of Dalits as described last year in the report by UN human rights rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya after her visit to India: ‘’The Special Rapporteur was deeply disturbed by the situation of the Dalits rights activists…The range of human rights violations they suffer is appalling.. From the dominant caste, Dalits’ rights defenders reportedly face.. death threats, beatings and caste-based insults in public places, destruction of their property/belongings; and filing of false cases against them.” and “With regard to the police and state officials, Dalits’ rights defenders reportedly have often seen their complaints not taken up and instead have been charged in false cases … in collusion with the dominant caste community. They have also been summarily executed, forcibly disappeared, physically assaulted, arbitrary detained…. branded as Naxalites and anti-nationals, and had their privacy invaded, including by being placed under surveillance.”

Bharathan’s work as a 51-year old Dalit activist in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in addition shows a sample view of the problems that Dalit’s in India are facing. He is supporting the cause of the Dalit sub-caste of Arundhathiyar who are condemned as manual scavengers to clean cleaning dry latrines bare-handed. In the whole of India this is affecting around a million people, especially women. Bharathan is fighting for the eradication of this illegal practice, just thousands of others who are now on a footmarch – the Maila Mukti Yatra - through 18 Indian states to ban the practice. He also campaigns for reforms in the police system and against custodial torture. The appallingly ineffective and corrupt functioning of the police shows from the fact that perpetrators of crimes against Dalits are hardly ever convicted. According to the report ‘Torture and Impunity in India’ (People’s Watch, 2008) financed by the EU annually around 1.8 million people are tortured in police offices and prisons. The victims are mostly Dalits and Adivasi (tribals), who are together a quarter of the population. A law against torture - there is a draft - is already being postponed for years by the government by not placing it before the Parliament. This way the ‘biggest democracy on earth’ is guilty of systematic grave violations of human rights.

Inpunity of violence against women
As director of the organization Human Rights Education and Protection Council Bharathan helps in setting up of organizations of Dalits, including of Dalit women. The recent brutal rape of a woman in New Delhi especially focussed attention to the sexual violence against middle class women. The problem is however a ‘standard experience’ of many Dalit women. In many areas the landlord or another man of a higher caste can abuse a Dalit woman with impunity. Because of resistance by Dalit women there is slowly some change now in some areas, but the police still normally sides with the perpetrators of higher castes.

Bharathan also fights for compensation and rehabilitation of Dalits who have become victims of human rights violations. These include among many others coarse insults and humiliation, no access to the village water tap or temple, bonded labour, robbery of land up to rape and assault. Also at present Bharathan is being harassed by the dominant caste people and police trying to do his disrupt work. Recently again a few cases were filed against him, including in July 2012 for staging a roadblock to demand a burial ground for Dalits who are denied access to existing graveyards. The police prohibits every demonstration that Bharathan organizes or in which he participates.

Dalits higher on EU agenda
By awarding the Human Rights Tulip to a Dalit the jury of the Tulip nudges Minister Timmermans of Foreign Affairs to make the position of Dalits in South Asia – there are also at least 60 million in rest of South Asia – to a priority in his new human rights policy. The Parliament already asked for that by adopting a motion in 2011. Minister Timmermans described the Dalits during the budget session in December 2012 as 'population groups that for centuries are not even on the ladder, let alone on the bottom rung of a ladder', and told the Parliament that we have to invest in strengthening the position of Dalits. The topic of discrimination based on work and descent has, the Minister said, 'to be put higher on the agenda of the European Union' and 'the European Parliament has recently adopted a very relevant resolution about the position of Dalits and I think that we can also better shape European policy on that basis.'
Minister Timmermans can use the granting of the Human Rights Tulip to the regrettably absent Mr. Bharathan to make clear what he is planning to contribute to this.

Gerard Oonk
director India Committee of the Netherlands and co-ordinator Dalit Netwerk Netherlands




last modification: