from the Human Rights watch Report 2006
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/india12272.htm
Rights of Dalits, Religious Minorities, and Indigenous Tribal Groups
Although caste-based abuses are forbidden under Indian law, and the government has embarked upon consultations to protect the rights of Dalits, other marginalized castes, and vulnerable communities, the government has failed to eradicate prejudice, particularly in rural areas. In a May 2005 report, After the Deluge, Human Rights Watch documented numerous instances in which higher-caste communities refused to share post-tsunami emergency relief with Dalits. Ongoing abuses against Dalits include harassment, excessive force by security forces in routine matters, mutilations, and killings by members of other castes for attempting to cross caste barriers. For example, in September 2005, more than fifty Dalit homes were burned down by the upper-caste Jat community in Haryana state.
Increasingly, caste panchayats, or caste-based village councils, extrajudicially punish inter-caste marriages with public lynching of couples or their relatives, murder of the bride or the groom, rape, public beatings, and other sanctions. This is particularly common if either bride or bridegroom is a Dalit.
Indigenous peoples, known as Scheduled Tribes or Adivasis, suffer from high rates of displacement. They make up 8 percent of the total population but constitute 55 percent of displaced people. This has had a serious effect on the overall development of these communities, particularly tribal children. The government continues to use the 1894 Land Acquisition Act to displace indigenous peoples from their lands without sufficient compensation. In 2005, the government proposed the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, which is designed to protect the rights of those who had been occupying forest land prior to October 1980. Activists worried that the new law could aggravate tensions between those who will and will not benefit. In addition, the draft fails to clarify access rights to common property resources such as pastures and forests, and it appears to be in conflict with earlier forest and wildlife protection laws.
Tribal groups who have converted to Christianity have been targeted for attack by extremist Hindu organizations. In June 2005, an independent people�s tribunal investigating the rise of violent sectarianism in Orissa state was threatened by members of the right-wing Hindu extremist groups Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bajrang Dal.
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"Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power.
It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality."
- Dr BR Ambedkar
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