SOUTH ASIA State of Minorities SOUTH ASIA REPORT 2018 Exploring the Roots State of Minorities South Asia’s minorities - religious and linguistic groups, especially REPORT 2018 women and those from Dalit backgrounds amongst them, and the many indigenous/adivasi communities, besides sexual minorities - make up disproportionate numbers of the poor and excluded in each country, Exploring the Roots suffering discrimination in the socio-economic sphere and denial of the most basic human rights. South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018: Exploring the Roots seeks to examine the reasons for the poor outcomes for minorities in South Asia, shining a light specifically on their socio-economic situation and their access to rights and opportunities. South Asia demonstrates amply how failures to prevent exclusion and discrimination against specific minorities have opened the way for graver abuse of human rights and violence against those groups. The South Asia State of Minorities Report is planned as a tool for advocacy. It is hoped that the periodic reports on outcomes for minorities and the quality of state provisioning for them, will spur public debate on the subject in the region and create the conditions for state parties and the SAARC to agree to give serious consideration to issues of minorities and how to deliver for them. The purpose of the project is about promoting citizenship, a central challenge of the ‘deepening democracy’ agenda in the region. This publication is the second in the series following the publication of South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016: Mapping the Terrain. The South Asia Collective is a group of human rights activists and organisations that dream of a just, caring and peaceful South Asia, that came together in December 2015 to document the condition of the region’s minorities – religious, linguistic, ethnic, caste and gender, among others – hoping this would help in better outcomes for South Asia’s many marginalised groups. The South Asia Collective South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018 Exploring the Roots The South Asia Collective i South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018 Exploring the Roots South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018 Exploring the Roots This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Provided they acknowledge the source, users of this content are allowed to remix, tweak, build upon and share for noncommercial purposes under the same original license terms. Some rights reserved South Asia State of Minorities Report Collective Currently hosted by Misaal Foundation 24, Khazan Singh Building Adh Chini, Aurobindo Marg New Delhi - 110 017, India Tel: +91 (0)11-26535961 / 62 Email: [email protected] Web : www.misaal.ngo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/misaalfellowship ISBN: 978-81-926907-4-2 First Edition: 2018 An Imprint of Registered Office 139, Richmond Road, Bangalore–560 025 Karnataka, India Phone: +91-80-43650647,25580346 Corporate Office R7 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110016 Phone: +91-11-40640500 e-mail: [email protected] www.booksforchange.info Cover Design: Nabajit Malakar Design and layout of text pages: M V Rajeevan Printed at: 3P Solutions B 186, Okhla Phase 1, New Delhi 110020. ii Contents Foreword v Executive Summary vii Acknowledgements xv Note on the South Asia Collective xvii Abbreviations xix Note on Contributors xxvii Chapter 1: Introduction 01 Exploring the Roots of the Vulnerabilities of Minorities in South Asia Chapter 2: Looking Back 35 2017–18 in the Lives of Minorities in South Asia Chapter 3: Bangladesh 55 Cracks in the Foundation Chapter 4: Bhutan 101 An Uneasy Mosaic Chapter 5: India 131 Unable to Protect; Reluctant to Promote Chapter 6: Pakistan 185 Striving for Realisation or Hitting Dead-Ends? Chapter 7: Sri Lanka 235 Examining the Weave Annexure: I 277 The State of Minorities in Afghanistan Annexure: II 285 The State of Minorities in Nepal Annexure: III-A 301 Status of Ratification of Treaties in South Asia Annexure: III-B 309 Women’s Status in South Asia iii South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018 Exploring the Roots Annexure: III-C 313 General Socioeconomic Indicators Annexure: IV-A 317 Research Methodology and Data Collection Plan Annexure: IV-B 323 Data Collection, Methods and Sources iv Foreword The multiple religious, linguistic and ethnically diverse communities that make up South Asia are our richest source of culture and heritage. The man- ner in which various influences impacted, intermixed and developed each other to higher standards of decency and humanity have, over centuries, led to significant progress, and the emergence of common values deemed South Asian, even though they are bifurcated by national boundaries drawn to protect hegemonies. Our history books tell us that this trajectory of interchange has never been linear, and has often been disrupted by violent contestation. There have always been influences that seek to divide and conquer us, highlighting differences and sowing distrust in undisguised quests for power, influence and fiefdom. One historical feature of the cultures in the region, fuelled by beliefs in the value of spirituality, is to treat even these disruptive influences with kindness and sophistication, retaining the residual goodness in them, while rejecting and fighting against their destructive influences. It is this spirit that is needed once again as identity and belief - the source of so much pride accumulated over centuries, are parodied and por- trayed by those set with a narrow compass on history, as sources of division and hate. The South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018, written drawing on meticulous research, and underscored by immense humanity, highlights the vast distance we need to travel once again. It has often been said that a society should be judged on how well it treats its most vulnerable populati- ons. The violations of the rights of marginalized and excluded populations highlighted in this report emphasize the need for urgent and collective acti- on to fight against those who would divide and conquer us. Hate is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can only propagate greater hate. Emerging from this deathly cauldron requires committed leaders and value-driven communities who can see past trickery and vested interest, to draw clear lines that respect every individual’s dignity and worth, and celebrate every culture that has contributed to the incredible mosaic of populations that survive, endure and thrive in these lands. The report is compulsory reading for all who are concerned about the future of our body politic. If read closely it will make you ashamed and angry, but neither of these sentiments are likely to result in a better 2019. To do that requires v South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018 Exploring the Roots collective will, generosity of resource and spirit, dreams about a better world and the imagination for how to get there. To kick-start that, it needs a determination not to be fooled into believing that the person besides you, irrespective of her religion, in fact shares common values for peace and prosperity. There is much at stake here for our common future. Yet this can only be realized if we defeat the dark period we are in. A period characteri- zed by selfishness and avarice we thought had been eased by the progress of our civilizations, but which has resurfaced. Our history tells us that if we unite for progress, brighter days will come. We have done this before, a few generations ago, and can do it again, by realizing that sharing our space in peace and prosperity is only possible if we all realize that we have a collec- tive stake in it. And if we do that successfully, the report for 2019 will begin to look significantly different. Professor Joshua Castellino Executive Director & Professor of Law Minority Rights Group International, London, UK vi Executive Summary 1. South Asia’s minorities - religious and linguistic groups, especially women and those from Dalit backgrounds amongst them, and the many indigenous / Adivasi communities, besides sexual minorities - make up disproportionate numbers of the poor and excluded in each country in the region, suffering discrimination in the socio-economic sphere, be- sides denial of the most basic human rights. They form the bulk of the marginalised in a region that houses over half the world’s multi-dimen- sionally poor, and where country Human Development Index (HDI) rankings are among the worst. Yet, there is very little systematic docu- mentation of the condition of minorities, and of discrimination in deliv- ery of basic rights. Poor access of South Asia’s minorities to socio-eco- nomic rights makes them vulnerable to violations of other critical rights too – life and security, freedom of religion, and to participation - a cycle we see playing out repeatedly in the entrenched exclusions and frequent targeted violence against minorities across South Asia. 2. South Asia State of Minorities Report (SASoM 2018): Exploring the Roots - the second in the series after South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016: Mapping the Terrain - is on the theme of socio-econom- ic rights, aimed both to document evidence of denials as well as to act as a tool to galvanise action. SASoM 2018 reports on the performance of each county in the region on equal and non-discriminatory access to socio-economic rights, specifically as it relates to their minorities. Us- ing international treaties of direct relevance to socio-economic rights as basis for the assessment, SASoM 2018 focuses on states promoting equality and non-discrimination in the provision of key rights - health, education, work, adequate standard of living and social security. The analysis here uses UN’s Human Rights Indicators framework to report state performance, shedding light on commitments and efforts by state parties to deliver rights equally to their minorities, and the outcome of those measures.