Human rights in India

Résumé du document

Howrah, Calcutta's main railway Station, is more than just a significant source, transit point and destination for people. It is also the refuge and the living place of a crepuscular society, composed of different people who have been abandoned somehow, and who are living in and around the station's concourse. The focus of this essay is to present Calcutta's railway station, as a microcosm of the Indian society, and a context where the assessment of religious duties and human rights is very complex. It is difficult to determine the subtleties that distinguish influences and reactions arising out of a junction between religion, social belonging, practices and beliefs. But, I argue that today, in India, the language of duties is still more important than the language of rights. Through a brief anthropological description, I would like to introduce the different characters of the scene in terms of their social belonging, their lives, and their interaction. I would like to demonstrate West Bengal's efforts to find solutions that could improve these peoples' condition. But I will reflect upon the ambiguous applicability of the secular laws of the state of India, by highlighting some issues where the law is not always respected or applied, despite efforts made by the government.

Extraits

[...] Persons with Disabilities' (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act (1995), http://www.disabilityindia.org/mod1.cfm#pwd (accessed 01/11/2005) 8-‘Right to equality of opportunity in matters of public employment' The Constitution of India, Part III, article 16', ---‘Cultural and Educational Rights, Protection of interests of minorities' The Constitution of India, Part III, article 29'. http://lawmin.nic.in/coi.htm (accessed 15/11/05) 9-The country has almost no provisions for wheelchair access. Mentally handicapped patients generally are ill fed, denied adequate medical attention, and kept in poorly ventilated halls with inadequate sanitary conditions. The disabled are not able to obtain duty free imports of artificial limbs, crutches, wheelchairs, walking frames, and other medical needs. Less than 1 percent of the disabled are employed. [...]

[...] Disability India Network, Internet WWW page at URL: http://www.disabilityindia.org/mod1.cfm#pwd (accessed on 01/11/2005) Donnelly, Jack (2003) ‘Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practise', second edition, Cornell University press. pp.81-85. Dumont, Louis (2001) ‘Homo Hierarchicus:The caste System and its Implications'. Paperback (First published in 1966) Elder, Joseph.W (1996) Hindu Perspective on the Individual and the Collectivity, Religious Diversity and Human Rights, Columbia University, Press New York. pp. 54-86. Encyclopedia of Religion (2005) Second edition, Lindsay Jones editor in chief. Thomson Gale. ---------Christianity, pp.1660-1672. pp. [...]

[...] The Dalits are still facing social ostracism. Other poor citizens come to Howrah, out of desperation, due to starvation or hunger, or because they are too old to look after themselves. It is difficult to assess the governmental responsibility for the economic vulnerability in some areas, particularly when it comes to malnutrition and starvation. The duty of the State is raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health'13. For example, the government is providing 10 kilograms of food-grain under the ‘Annapurna Yojana' programme14, for people who have no one to look after them. [...]

[...] The majority are the tribes of lost children who are overrunning the society. They have ended up in the railway station for various reasons. The vast majority of them have become orphans2, and as a result, they had no other choice but to look after themselves. It was also often confessed by few of them that the reasons they ran away from home were mainly due to domestic violence and different sorts of abuse. Others also confirmed the incredible fact that they had been traveling with their parents, but had drifted away from them in the vast human torrent, and ended up lost and disorientated. [...]

[...] However, it is hardly reflected in reality. Finally, and this is the central thrust of my argument, the various examples mentioned previously tend to demonstrate that, despite much debate, the different reactions observed amongst the different people and their religion, eventually converge and become very similar. Scenes, such as –masses of people, extreme pollution, the beggars and the crippled children, abandoned widows and people dying on a platform- can make Howrah into a cliché of squalor and despair. It can also make the occasional ‘seeker' look for a rather quick justification for such despair. [...]