| “In
India, FDH supports the Dalits in their fight for the respect
of their human, social, economic, and cultural rights.” |
| Fedina :
FDH has been working in India since 1965. Currently,
we support organizations for Dalits (“broken man,”
in Hindi), or Untouchables. Deemed “impure,”
they are the victims of a permanent human, social, political,
economic, and cultural apartheid.
FDH works alongside Dalit organizations in southern India,
in the struggle for the recognition of their economic, social,
political, cultural, and human rights.
|
| Statistics
on India |
Population: 992 700 000
in 1999, of which 28.1% live in urban areas (1)
Population below the level of
poverty: 44.2% (1)
Illiteracy rate: 43.5%
in 1999
Religions: Hindu: 86.6%,
Muslim: 11.4%, Others (Christian, Sikh, Buddhist): 2% (2)
Division of activity sectors as
% of GDP:
agriculture (61.6%),
industry (17.1%),
services (21.3%)
Type of state: federal
republic (25 states, 7 territories)
Type of government: parliamentary
democracy with two houses
Elected in July 2002, A.P.J. Kalam has
just taken over the presidency from R. Narayan, the first
Dalit to hold this position.
(1)World Human Development Report 2001, PNUD, De Boeck University
(2)Encarta, CD Rom, Microsoft, 1997
(3)State of the World, La Découverte
|
|
| |
| Land access is
a crucial problem for the Dalits: in rural regions,
they are forced to live in areas separate from the rest
of the population. In addition, they experience great
difficulty in obtaining space to build their villages
and to work as agricultural workers, since they are
refused land ownership. |
|
| Victims of discrimination,
violence, and social exclusion, the Dalits use theater
as a means of expression and to raise awareness about
their situation. |
|
|
| |
| |
 |
| The most taxing
and trying jobs are reserved for the Dalits. Stonecutters
working with semi-precious stones work in exploitative
conditions. Their isolation from working at home, their
unstable income, their strong dependence on wholesale
distributors for raw materials, their debt from buying
machines, and the unpredictable nature of their work
forces them to make their children work, too. |
|
| |
|
| Based on a women’s
initiative, a small cooperative selling the villagers
basic needs (food, kerosene, etc) was established in
the village in order to solve the problems of distance
and the lack of transportation options. |
|
|
India - "Dalits"
