Beaten as a Dalit, Denied Protection Because He is Christian
A recent case exposes that the law has wrongly misunderstood that conversion to Christianity or Islam automatically ends the caste discrimination faced by Dalits. Chinthada Anand, a convert to Christianity, was allegedly attacked as a Dalit in Andhra Pradesh, but the Supreme Court ruled that he could not receive the protection under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act because he was no longer legally recognised as a Scheduled Caste. This raises the question of whether the SC/ST Act should ask what religion the victim follows or whether society, including the alleged attackers, treated that person as a Dalit.
Menstrual Discrimination Alarming Among Dalit Sanitation Workers, a Report Suggests
Dalit women working as manual scavengers or housemaids in Delhi face severe menstrual discrimination from their employers and within their own families, with some workers seeing their wages cut and others hiding their periods to avoid punishment at work, according to a report by the Kathmandu-based advocacy organisation Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation (GSCDM).