'Caste discrimination is difficult to get rid of.'

Can you explain to us what the thinking or philosophy underpinning the caste system is?

The caste system is viewed differently by anthropologists, sociologists and people who study ethnography.

But mostly everybody seems to agree that it is here because of Hinduism. The Hindu philosophy divides the people into castes, so that is the root cause. If it was here by some other means, at least it would be easier to address.

But because it has got the sanction of Hinduism, and Hinduism is very deep-rooted in India, caste discrimination is difficult to get rid of. Hinduism means caste-ism, and vice versa. They go together hand in glove.

So philosophically speaking, the Hindu culture and philosophy divides people and discriminates between them.

That was why our leader, Dr (Bhimrao Ramji) Ambedkar declared in 1935: “I was born a Hindu; I had no choice. But I will not die a Hindu because I do have a choice.” He embraced Buddhism later on in his life.

On a practical, day-to-day basis, how do you fight a system that’s so old and so entrenched?

Generally in India it’s easy for us to convince people to think on the human rights issues. And we’re enabling people to come together to fight against caste discrimination.

When dealing with ordinary people, we can’t talk that much about Hinduism. Even some Dalits will claim that they are Hindus – although we really are not Hindus and we are outcasts.

So instead of talking about Hinduism as I was earlier, we simply say that this is a human rights issue. Our rights a being infringed upon; our rights are abused; our rights are denied. You and I are both human beings, so why am I denied my rights?

The second thing we look at is class, to see how it relates to our lives. We’re always asking why our people are always agricultural labourers. Why are we poor? Or illiterate? Is it related to class in any way? Or does caste come into it too?

What we’re trying to get across people here is that caste more than class determines whether a Dalit will be poor, uneducated or in a low-paid job and with no property rights. Untouchability does relate to all those.

How does all this affect Dalit women and children, and what steps are being taken to help them?

We often say that Dalit women are the “real Dalits”; the Dalits of the Dalits! Sadly, even Dalit men can be very patriarchal. And so my wife feels that Dalit women should be organised and empowered.

I’ve been defending Dalit human rights for many years – in the courts and in other forums. But my wife is an employee of the Central Government in India. Dalit women face a number of health problems because of their living conditions.

And so basically my wife is trying to do something about both women’s rights and children’s rights – primarily through education.

Madurai is a big city next to Chennai. There are about 200 slums there. These slums are populated mainly by Dalits and other lower caste people – but mostly Dalits.

People migrate to Madurai in huge numbers – some because they’ve been evicted, some because of caste problems. They usually end up in the slums. My wife looks after education for Dalit children in this city’s slums.

Education can change their lives; that is my wife’s conviction. Without it, these children will go back to their parents’ old practices of scavenging, etc. So my wife is trying to arrange coaching classes for the children. Without it they may end up dropping out of school.

How can people here in the UK support your cause?

There are a number of ways. Ordinary people can understand how the Dalits are affected by the caste system. But how can they translate their knowledge into action?

Well, firstly they can bring pressure to bear on their MPs to take the issue up within the Government. Nowadays, governments all talk to each other.

Also, everyone has different gifts. People are good writers, so they could write articles or blogs or journals. [Songwriter and activist] Garth Hewitt uses his talents on our behalf, singing songs he wrote about the Dalit Drum.

This is the kind of positive response we need from people. What they do might not be on the same scale as what we’ve seen here today, but it will have its own impact.

There might be people here from different organisations, charities or NGOs; they could go back and try to influence those organisations to take up this issue.

And I should also mention here that Christian Aid has been a supporter of ours for the last ten or 15 years, supporting the national campaign for Dalit human rights. They are committed to fighting social exclusion – and at the moment, the director of Christian Aid in India is a Dalit. We are thankful to Christian Aid for this.