WASHINGTON, Oct 7: The US Congress held an unprecedented hearing on Thursday on India’s Dalits, once known as the ‘untouchables’, describing it as a key human rights issue.

Some 200 million of India’s estimated population of a billion people are Dalits, occupying the bottom rung in Hinduism’s 2,500-year-old caste system, and the hearing was told that they faced discrimination, abuse, torture and even death because of the family into which they were born.

“To keep nearly a quarter of one’s population in sub-human status is not only a grotesque violation of human rights, but it is a formula for economic and political stagnation as well,” said Republican New Jersey Representative Christopher Smith, who chaired the one-day hearing.

He said that as the United States sought to develop a strategic partnership with India, including civilian nuclear cooperation, ‘we must not lose sight of India’s serious human rights problems’.

The Indian government “condones, ignores and in some instances, has even promoted ... massive catalogues of human rights violations,” said Smith, who heads a House of Representatives human rights panel that organized the hearing.

“All too often, enforcement of laws protecting human rights has been weak or non-existent,” he said.

While most Dalits lived in extreme poverty, Smith said, Hindu extremists resented gains made by this oppressed group which benefited from education and medical programs launched by Christian missionaries.

“Converts to Christianity and Christian missionaries are particularly targeted, as violence against Christians often goes unpunished,” Smith said, adding that many states had adopted anti-conversion laws in violation of India’s constitutional protection for religious freedom.

This is the first time Congress has held a hearing on the plight of the Dalits, said Nanci Ricks, the executive director of the Colorado-based Dalit Freedom Network, among groups which helped organize the event.

Congressional sources said Christian-based groups had lobbied Republican legislators to hold the hearing, entitled “India’s Unfinished Agenda: Equality and Justice for Victims of Caste System.”

Asked to comment on the event, a spokesman for the Indian embassy in Washington said New Delhi had taken various steps, including making provisions in the country’s charter, to help the Dalits.

“As a vibrant democracy, India has in place constitutional safeguards as well as an active affirmative action program to address the problems of the weaker sections of society, including the Dalits,” spokesman Venu Rajamony said.

“These efforts are continuing and their positive results are visible to all,” he said.

Amnesty International’s Asia advocacy director T. Kumar told the hearing that the Indian government should fully enforce laws against discrimination on the basis of caste and descent, and rein in groups, including the police, which he said had discriminated against Dalits.

“This culture of impunity must end. Until India’s ‘hidden apartheid’ is truly and completely abolished, the world’s largest democracy cannot hope to make truly substantive progress towards liberty for all,” he said. —AFP