Ms. Asha Kowtal, General Secretary AIDMAM, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, leads this campaign based in New Delhi. With a decade of work experience in the development sector in India, she has been a part of various institutions and social movements aimed at securing rights for the most marginalized communities. Her work with women and children brought her in direct contact with marginalization and the politics of exclusion and violence based on structural factors like caste and patriarchy. An evolving analysis and political perspective brought her to the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights through which she now prime moves the initiatives pertaining to Dalit women rights.

All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM) is a forum led by Dalit Women, committed to challenge the nexus of patriarchy and caste oppression which has marginalized Dalit Women for centuries. AIDMAM has membership and solidarity of non-Dalit women, Dalit men and other human rights defenders committed to the cause of protection and promotion of the rights of Dalit Women. Promoting leadership of Dalit Women, AIDMAM nurtures women leaders towards greater participation in politics and civil society. This is a campaign towards access to right to life, security, development, dignity and equality in a violence-free society for Dalit women

1. How do you see the power of Dalits Movement in India and how do you see the power of Dalit women in these movements?
   
   The Dalit movement in India has a rich history of rationalism and humanism. Jyoti Ba Phule (1827 - 1890) led a massive resistance to the Brahmanical tyranny in the 19th century. He and his wife started the first school for Dalit and especially girl children at a time where they could not even dream of going to school. Periyar Ramaswamy (1879 - 1973) started the self respect movement in Tamil Nadu based on the principles of rationalism, anti-brahmanical perspective, women's rights and eradication of caste. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar ( 1891 - 1956 ), an intellectual and visionary was a great uniting force for Dalits and stood tall among all his contemporaries to mobilize the Dalits to fight for their rights and dignity. He also drafted the Indian Constitution and worked hard to ensure political rights for Dalits. He was the source of inspiration for Dalit movements across India. Dalit movement today is at cross roads, aiming to fight its battles by organizing politically and intellectually. The Dalit movements and organizations form a significant part of civil society collectives in India. Dalit groups have also worked towards making the Caste based discrimination issue a global one and successfully brought it into the UN and International media. However, Dalit women leadership has been very limited or even absent in many Dalit groups across India. Dalit women continue to lack recognition and respect even within the Dalit Movement. Patriarchal structures operate in a subtle and divisive manner which has kept the women out of the leadership levels. However, it now seems that there is positive change for the leadership of Dalit women, albeit slowly.
   
   
2. How do you observe the role played by mainstream feminist movements towards the rights of Dalits Women in India?
   
   India's population of 160 million Dalits is composed of approximately 50% women who make up about 16% of India's total female population, and 8% of the total population. However the Dalit women continue to remain excluded from access to resources, justice and political participation. Within the mainstream feminist movements, Dalit women issues have neither been understood nor represented and hence we have remained isolated within the mainstream women's movements. The triple discrimination of Dalit women based on Caste, Class and Patriarchy often remains unexplored within the mainstream women's movements.
   
   
3. What is the situation of Dalits, Dalits women and their access to land and other resources?
   
   Keeping in mind the historicity of land ownership and over five decades of land reforms implementation in India, it is evident that land ownership structures in Indian States are still skewed. Understanding land distribution pattern in India in a social group framework is a decisive and interesting task. It is indeed a sad commentary on land reforms and the egalitarian policies of the Government that five decades after independence, the Dalits are still forced to work as landless labourers, bonded labourers and attached labourers and are denied ownership rights to land.
   
   Landlessness among the Dalits is a common feature in the Indian rural economy. At an all India level, the 1999-2000 NSS data illustrates that around 10 percent of the SC households are landless as compared to 13.34 percent in 1992 and 19.10 percent in 1982. Though it is apparent that landlessness is decreasing, but the rate of decrease is marginal. On the other hand, 6.15 percent of the Non SC/ST households were found to be landless in 1999-2000, as compared to 10.53 in 1992.
   
   If we try to relax the definition of landlessness up to some extent and combine the two categories, i.e. landless and near-landless(landless plus near landless households means household owning less than 0.40 hectares of land), the percentage of landless plus near-landless was found to be as high as 79.20, 52.90 and 59.20 percent for the SCs, the STs, and the Non SC/ST groups respectively in 1999-2000, whereas, the same figures stood at 69.73, 41.58 and 47.21 percentage points for the respective groups in 1992
   
   
4. What are your demands on land reforms?
   
   
   • Recognize Right to Land as a birth right to Dalits.
     
     
   • Protect the lands of Dalits from encroachment by others.
     
     
   • Redeem and hand over Panchami /Mahar/Depressed land to Dalits.
     
     
   • Appoint Special Courts to deal with the land issues relating to Dalits.
     
     
   • Provide due Share to Dalits in Common Properties of villages.
     
     
   • Stop eviction of Dalits from their occupied lands in the name of Development Projects.
     
     
   • Implement Land Reform Acts and distribute the surplus Lands to Dalits.
     
     
   • Ensure Dalits to enjoy the Tenancy Rights in all Temple and Government Lands.
     
     
   • Ensure each Dalit Family gets a minimum of 5 acres of wet Land.
     
     
   • Ensure Dalit Family gets and enjoys House Sites at free of cost.
     
     
   • Ensure Dalits have rights in the Common burial ground.
     
     
   • Appoint Special Experts Committee under SC Commission to study the situation of Dalits relating to Land ownership.
     
     
   • Initiate stringent action under section 4 of SC/ST (POA) Act 1989, against the officials who act against the Land Rights of Dalits.
     
     
   • Enact a Comprehensive SC/ST (POA) Act to deal with Dalit Land Rights
     
     
5. Have your organization or any other organizations working for the rights of Dalits in India conducted any mapping on the current hunger and poverty status of Dalits in India? What is the overall situation on Dalits and Hunger?
   
   A combination of high incidence of wage labour, low educational attainment and high unemployment results in a high degree of deprivation and poverty among Dalit women. According to the 2005-06 National Family and Health Survey, about 68.5 per cent of ST and 58.3 per cent of SC women suffered from anemia compared to 51.3 per cent of non-SC/ST women. Malnutrition of the mother impacts the health of children. About 21 per cent of SC and 26 per cent of ST children under the age of four suffered from malnutrition compared to 13.80 per cent of other's children. Nearly 72 per cent of SC children suffer from anemia, compared to 63.8 per cent those for others. High levels of malnutrition among the SC/ST result in higher morbidity and mortality. In 2005-06, the infant mortality rates for SC and ST were 66.4 and 62 per thousand live births, respectively. This is much higher than the 49 for other categories of women.
   
   Our organization is a member of the "Right to Food Campaign" which is an informal network of organizations and individuals committed to the realization of the right to food in India. Together we have been involved in lobby towards the National Food Security Act in India towards ensuring that the act takes special consideration of the food requirements of Dalits and especially Dalit women and children. Our organization is also part of several initiatives working towards inclusion of Dalit women in the various health programmes of the Government.
   
   
6. Climate change has already started to impact on agriculture, water, health and many other areas, how do you see the impact of climate change in the lives of Dalits and specially in the lives of Dalits women in India?
   
   Women from marginalized communities like Tribal and Dalits are placed in a socio economic context which intrinsically links them with natural resources and hence the impact of climate changes. One cannot deny the link between poverty and marginalized women who are placed at the bottom of the development ladder. An analysis of poverty can never be done without the link with natural resources and assets. In this way, poverty - women - natural resource and climate change cannot be overlooked. I visited a flood affected area in Southern India last monsoon and my immediate observation was that the houses belonging to upper caste families withstood the floods and apart from minor inconvenience, they were able to soon get back to normal life. Whereas, the 200 odd houses from the dalit colony were all washed way. They had lost their houses, belongings, tools and other livelihood sources on which they were dependent for their daily living. The dalit women were the worst affected because they form the large chunk of agricultural labour which was lost after the floods. They were worse off because they had to tend for the entire family in the absence of a shelter, sanitation facilities, food and clothes. The difference was stark and visible. Impact of climate change on dalit women was different from the impact on other caste groups.
   
   
7. What are the major steps that your organization has been taking to address climate change and its potential impacts in the lives of Dalits in India?
   
   We are in the process of a concrete analysis on the impact of climate change on Dalits, but our experiences in the recent disasters have shown that Dalits have been affected the most during floods, earthquakes and cyclones. Dalits have been excluded from the relief and rehabilitation efforts of state and private agencies. Caste based discrimination and untouchability during post disaster operations has been researched and studied thoroughly by Dalit Watch, another unit within the organization working towards developing effective policies towards inclusion of Dalits in disaster relief and rehabilitation.
   
   
8. Tell us about your organization and what are your major demands?
   
   National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) is a forum committed to the elimination of discrimination based on caste. A democratic secular platform led by Dalit women and men activists, with support and solidarity from movements and organizations, academics, individuals, people's organizations and institutions throughout the country who are committed to work to protect and promote human rights of Dalits focusing on women and children.
   
   NCDHR is now represented by four allied campaigns working on thematic of economic rights, civil - political rights, land rights and dalit women rights.
   
   The Government of India earmarks budgets for development of Dalits and Tribals through Special Component Plana and tribal Sub plan respectively. Lack of political will, casteist attitudes and bureaucratic red tape never allows this money to be spent for this purpose. In 2006-07, Rs. 20,289,25 Crores (over 507 billion U.S. dollars) which by law should have been directed specifically towards the development of the Dalit community have instead been allocated for other purposes. The Economic Rights Campaign (Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan ) within NCDHR works towards budget analysis and policy advocacy for ensuring economic rights to Dalits.
   
   The Justice Delivery Mechanism, primarily the Legal System, which is supposed to protect the poor and the marginalized Dalit victims of to access justice, is struggling with the gigantic problems of huge number of pending cases and the biased mindset of human element within its system. Lack of minimum legal awareness among the poor and the marginalized Dalits makes their situation further worse. The Civil and Political rights campaign (National Dalit Movement for Justice) works towards policy formulation and better implementation of laws meant to protect the rights and dignity of Dalits in India.
   
   

Date: Aug 10th, 2010.

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