The removal of social ills such as discrimination on grounds of gender, race or caste, or domestic violence and child-abuse, cannot be accomplished without active intervention by the State. In a liberal democracy this has to be mainly in the form of adequate legislation and effective enforcement. However, state action is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition for the eradication of social evils. In most societies in transition legislation tends to run well ahead of changes in social attitudes and customs. The more deep-rooted a custom or practice, the greater is the time-lag. Effective - in fact, draconian - implementation of the enacted laws is essential to bring about changes in social attitudes that have taken root over generations. But in a 'soft state' like India enforcement of the law is notoriously weak; while the hold of tradition, custom, superstition and religion remains strong as ever. The one instrument for weakening this hold, education, has been singled out for neglect by the Indian State. So, despite legislative measures, social evils of the vilest variety continue to plague Indian society: caste-prejudice, caste-violence, female foeticide, dowry deaths, child-labour, religious killings are just at the top of a long list. Furthermore, the divisive nature of India's electoral politics, which relies heavily on the politics of grievance, is such that it tends to reinforce social discord based on caste, region and religion.

While all these ills are a disgrace to Indian society, it would be wrong to bring them under the rubric of human rights violations. Most sources define human rights essentially as an issue between governments and individuals or groups. Thus according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, human rights are "the basic rights which every person has to be treated in a fair, equal way without cruelty, especially by their government." The Hutchinson Encyclopaedia defines human rights as "civil and political rights of the individual in relation to the state."

According to Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, "Human rights are political norms dealing mainly with how people should be treated by their governments and institutions." How people treat each other is of course of vital importance, but such issues are distinct from lapses by governments in the area of human rights. As the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy observes: "Many political movements would like to see their main concerns categorized as matters of human rights, since this would publicize, promote, and legitimate their concerns at the international level. A possible result of this is "human rights inflation," the devaluation of human rights caused by producing too much bad human rights currency (Cranston 1973, Orend 2002, Wellman 1999, Griffin 2001b). The most basic idea of the human rights movement is not that of a right, but the idea of regulating the behaviour of governments through international norms." (Emphasis added) [1]

In this context the "behaviour" of governments is, of course, not confined just to framing laws to eliminate social evils. The implementation (whether fully effective or not) of these laws, in good faith, is essential. It is not unknown for governments to act in violation of their own laws, or to condone and collude with such violations. The situation in Gujarat is often cited as an example. This constitutes a clear breach of human rights and has to be brought to light on every occasion. Poor implementation, by itself, does not amount to such a breach. In issues related to social practices and prejudices, attitudinal change is the key; and legislation can only play an enabling role. Given a 'soft state' and a tradition-bound society, implementation will inevitably be poor.

The point made above, that "Many political movements would like to see their main concerns categorized as matters of human rights, since this would publicize, promote, and legitimate their concerns at the international level." seems to fit particularly the case of the internationalization of the Dalit issue. While some obvious cases - such as torture or custodial deaths - go unchallenged, politically sensitive questions are taken up as human rights issues by interested parties to "publicize, promote, and legitimate their concerns at the international level." This suits certain foreign governments. In recent years, the question of Human Rights has been gaining increasing prominence in international politics, and the Great Powers are only too happy to lay their hands on this tool to intervene in the internal affairs of other States. Someone has rightly described Human Rights intervention as a "jemmy in the door of national sovereignty." [2] Therefore representations in international fora against governments for human rights violations have to be resorted to with great caution and restraint.

Here NGO's, domestic as well as international, have a crucial role to play. It cannot be denied that many domestic NGO's have a political, religious or sectarian agenda. In a liberal democracy nothing prevents these NGO's from promoting the desired change through the normal democratic process of mobilising public opinion or invoking judicial intervention. When a domestic NGO seeks international intervention against its national government it can only mean that it has failed to muster the requisite public support or legal vindication for its stand. This factor has to be taken into account by the international NGO's and other agencies before they take up the issue. This, of course, is true only when the domestic NGO is operating in a democratic setup. The situation in an authoritarian regime, where democratic processes of redress are not available, is entirely different.

As a study by the University of Pennsylvania has noted: "India has the world's largest and oldest affirmative action program. Dalit intellectuals have long hoped that quotas for jobs and university places would help lift the community out of poverty. But those programs have been both controversial and corrupt. They are credited with helping create a small Dalit middle class but also criticized for perpetuating the entrenched societal structure.

It's gone from horrible to bad. But it's like saying that you have to climb a 10,000-foot mountain and you've climbed 1,000 feet," said Devesh Kapur, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Advanced Study of India. 'Still, the fact that we have seen a change of this magnitude after hundreds and hundreds of years of this community being crushed is really amazing.'"

Surely, "horrible to bad" is not a record to be proud of. An immense amount of work lies ahead. But that work is among the Indian people - on Indian soil and under the harsh Indian sun - and not in the air-conditioned conference halls of international fora.

1 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/#GenIdeHumRig

2 Perry Anderson in an editorial “Force and Consent’ in the New Left Review 17, September-October 2002 page 3, last line of first paragraph. http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2407

Air Marshal (Retd.) Vir Narain is chairman of the Indian Humanist Union and editor of its quarterly journal, The Humanist Outlook.