Seminar presents groundbreaking research on caste discrimination in South Asia

For the first time research has documented the extent and nature of caste-discrimination throughout the South Asian region. Researchers from five South Asian countries have gathered in Kathmandu on the 9th and 10th of November as part of a research project. It is the first time that caste-discrimination has been studied comprehensively in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The seminar, organized by the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) and the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), is the outcome of a regional research program in which teams of researchers in four South Asian countries have studied caste-based discrimination over the past year. The final research papers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal will be published by IIDS in January/February 2008.

” There is very little knowledge about caste discrimination in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka though it affects millions of people. In several countries, the research teams have started from a blank page in documenting the form of discrimination.  But I am confident that we have put discrimination and exclusion on the research agenda in all the South Asian countries today” says Martin Macwan from IIDS.

The regional seminar took place at the Hotel Himalaya in Kathmandu, and was attended by researchers, social activists and international agencies from throughout the South Asian region.  The research project has received funding from the Danish Government.