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Making things worse

© Mikkel Østergaard

Dalit woman carrying water, Orissa, India, 2006. Read more about caste discrimation .

“As a result of the tsunami relief and rehabilitation, dalits are even more dependent and vulnerable than before the Tsunami,” says Henri Tiphange, People’s Watch Tamilnadu .

The responsibility of implementing organisations

Lack of proper planning and organisation to tackle the discrimination by the organisations involved in the tsunami relief operation ensured that thousands of years of caste discrimination could continue unhindered. The Dalit Network Netherlands (DNN) report therefore strongly recommends that all involved actors, in particular organisations implementing disaster or development programmes in India and the Indian Government must ensure that this is not repeated in future relief operation and take steps immediately to ensure they are not contributing further to the caste divide in their pretence of “caste blindness”.

The caste fishermen were the hardest hit

Though the tsunami hit Indians indiscriminately, the caste fisherman community was the hardest hit by virtue of their proximity to the coast. But also the dalit communities were serious affected by the tsunami, many loosing their lives, but thousands lost their few possessions and their means of livelihood as daily wage labours for either the dominant caste or agricultural land owners.

The report further documents that most of the resources for the tsunami relief operation was targeted at and benefited the caste fisherman communities. The report says that:

“The caste fishermen have been given on balance far more and far better boats that they had before the tsunami…had their houses replaced…..and have been provided with important infrastructure. They received rice and cash, which made them less keen to go back to work – work that the Dalits were relying on.”

Prior to the tsunami most of the fishing boats had a crew that primarily consisted of workers from the dalit communities. The owners of the boats were solely from the fisherman castes. In fact dalits are not “allowed” to own fishing boats, and would face serious repercussion from the fisherman community if they did. Following the tsunami there was no work available for the dalits, as there was no fishing boats hence no fish were landed that needed to be carried to the markets, which is another typical work of dalits. Because the relief was primarily targeted towards the fisherman community, many dalits were put in an even more vulnerable situation as they had lost their only means of survival and received no or very little support. Many dalits were therefore forced to leave their communities in search of food and other work.

Denial of rice and refusal to share emergency shelters

According to the report, the discrimination was present at all phases of the recovery process from the denial of rice, the refusal to share emergency shelters, and the relief materials through to the compensation and provision of livelihood assistance and housing. In addition to this it was solely the dalit communities that were responsible for the removal of dead bodies after the tsunami. This has traditional always been the work of the dalits, but no efforts were made to ensure they were provided with appropriate equipment, facilities or supplies to undertake this grisly task.

Dalit situation is worse than before the tsunami

The result was that in addition to getting less aid during the relief phase, the livelihood options for the dalits also disappeared as a result of the discrimination during the tsunami recovery operations. The situation of dalits is generally worse than before the tsunami and comparatively far worse in relation to the dominant caste fishermen community, and caste tensions have increased in many areas.

By Jonas Nøddekær, Country Coordinator, Asia, jno@dca.dk