Abstract
This article explains why caste has not become part of the international approach to eliminate racial discrimination by examining a paradigmatic debate in India on the relevance of caste at the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa (WCAR) and its ‘Review Process’. In 2001, the NGO-led organisation, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, made an attempt to include caste-based discrimination in the Durban Declaration; however, the Government of India prevented this development on the grounds that caste was irrelevant in international law. Caste and race became contested political concepts, and the rationale of the Dalit campaign was challenged. Furthermore, the Indian government’s diplomatic opposition to include caste in the WCAR was consolidated by adopting a strict concept of race to create a political frontier against an international human rights regime. The ‘Durban process’ thus reactivated a hegemonic discourse in India concerning race to avoid international scrutiny of caste discrimination.
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List of interviews
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Acknowledgements
I thank the editors of the JIRD and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to develop this article into its final form. This study is partly informed by research carried out with the support from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) ‘Caste out of Development’ (RES-062-23-2227). I thank Eleanor Nesbitt, Adam David Morton, Suryakant Wagmore and Knut Ågotnes as well as the audiences in London, Mumbai and Bergen for their comments on an early version. I thanks also Iver B. Neumann, who has provided inputs throughout the process, as well as Umakant, Mona Joksch Berg and David Keane. Comments from Matthias Koenig, Rupa Viswanath and Gajendran Ayyathurai were valuable for my final revision in Göttingen. I thank Han Peng Ho for his proofreading. The content and shortcomings remain my own responsibility.
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Berg, DE. Race as a political frontier against caste: WCAR, Dalits and India’s foreign policy. J Int Relat Dev 21, 990–1013 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-017-0091-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-017-0091-3