State of exception: On India, the UN CERD report

In its first review by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) since 2007, India has elicited an expression of “grave concern” about reports of the law enforcement apparatus resorting to violence — physical and otherwise — against minority ethnic and ethno-religious groups, Dalits, and non-citizens over the years. The Committee also noted that India, which ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1968, has not provided detailed and updated information about the state’s inquiries and sanctions arising from allegations of such violence. While the government has told CERD that caste bias falls outside Article 1 of the convention because caste is not synonymous with race, CERD has allowed all forms of discri