India's growth of little benefit to its poorest

Posted By Michael H. Cognato Friday, February 23, 2007 - 12:56 PM Share

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP

Two recent reports highlight just how far India still has to go in its development. Last week, Human Rights Watch released a report claiming that India's 165 million dalits—so-called "outcastes" or "untouchables," placed on the lowest rung in India's caste system—are still the victims of brutal and pervasive discrimination. India's extensive system of political protections for dalits has not, by any stretch of the imagination, translated into improved social practices. Just one example from the report:

Dalits are forced to perform tasks deemed too "polluting" or degrading for non-Dalits to carry out. According to unofficial estimates, more than 1.3 million Dalits – mostly women – are employed as manual scavengers to clear human waste from dry pit latrines. In several cities, Dalits are lowered into manholes without protection to clear sewage blockages, resulting in more than 100 deaths each year from inhalation of toxic gases or from drowning in excrement.

Fast on the heels of this criticism has come another report, this one from UNICEF, which found that an astounding 46 percent of Indian children under the age of three are undernourished—far higher, even, than in sub-Saharan Africa. India has yet to prove that its blistering economic growth can be translated into widespread improvement in the lives of its poorest citizens.

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