Voice Dalit International (VODI) is a Charity formed in 1999 in the UK to internationalize the discriminatory practices of caste, which is ‘hidden apartheid'.
This is also termed as the ‘modern form of slavery', with ‘overtones of racism', affecting 300 million people in different countries including in the UK and more particularly in India.
They are called ‘Dalits', meaning the ‘historically broken people', the ‘Untouchables' and the outcastes of the Indian Caste system, which is sanctified by religion and reinforced by political forces.
VODI aims to bringing awareness amongst the western aid agencies, western public and their governments about the developmental and human right issues of Dalits.
"The world owes a duty to the untouchables (Dalits) as it does to all suppressed people to break their shackles and set them free. The problems of slaves, the Jews and the Blacks are nothing in comparison to the problems of Untouchables.”
"Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our Society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general. The only parallel to the practice of untouchabiliy was apartheid”.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, P.M.of India (27th December 2006)
CASTE & POVERTY
*Caste ‘causes poverty and gets into the way of poverty reduction’.
*It ‘causes the poverty of a particular people, leading to higher rates of poverty among the affected groups’.
*It ‘reduces the productive capacity and poverty reduction of a society as a whole’.
It deprives people of choices and opportunities to escape from poverty and denies them voice to claim their rights’.
*‘Poverty reduction policies often fail to reach socially excluded groups’ – Dalits- ‘unless they are specifically designed to do so’.
(‘Reducing Poverty by Tackling Social Exclusion’, Department for International Development DFID , UK 2004)