Title NLSAT LLB - Sample Question Set - 1.pdf ✅

Sample Passage 1 The attempt of Indian dalit groups to persuade the United Nations to include untouchability and casteism in the category of racism or racism-related discrimination has generated a lively debate. The government of India has opposed it because it goes against the ‘we may be poor but we have a noble civilization’ image that it has been determinedly cultivating in international forums for the last fifty years. It does not say so, of course. It says instead that ‘internationalising’ the issue is unnecessary, for two rather spurious reasons. One is that India has constitutionally prohibited casteism and caste discrimination, and has enacted legislation to punish untouchability in whatever form it manifests itself. That is to say, when there are internal mechanisms for tackling the problem, why should it be internationalised? By the same token the UN need not be concerned about extra-judicial executions and custodial violence since there is no country which has not prohibited such atrocities in law. Concern for international human rights has nonetheless been expressed in these matters since the national laws are systematically violated. The other argument is that treating casteism as a form of racism or racism-related discrimination would confuse and dilute the struggle against racism. By implication, the struggle against racism is somehow a very noble phenomenon which should not be sullied by dragging in untouchability and all that. Perhaps untouchability is merely a social problem whereas racism is a crime against humanity, and conflating the two would reduce the seriousness of the latter. Here, too, it is the discomfort of the official face of India more than anything else that is the prompting factor. It is not the fight against racism but India’s image as a fighter against racism that is likely to get ‘confused’ if untouchability is talked about in international forums. On the other hand, I would argue that treating casteism and untouchability as a form of racism would have the effect of obscuring the specificity of caste and casteism, and even otherwise there is no reason why caste discrimination, particularly untouchability, should not be treated in its own right as a crime against humanity instead of assimilating it with racism. After all, the UN is committed to opposing all forms of systematic discrimination and not merely those which resemble racism...Casteism, as an issue that concerns one-sixth of the world’s population and is an important ingredient of the social life of the second largest country in the world, should rightfully demand a place for itself in the UN’s agenda, rather than as an Indian variant of a generic problem called racism. [Extracted, with edits, from “Why not a separate UN Charter against casteism?”, by K. Balagopal, Deccan Chronicle, 16 October 2001] 1. What is the central argument of the author in the above passage? (A) Casteism should be included in the category of racism or racism-related discrimination at the level of the UN as it is a form of systemic ________________________________________________________________________________________ A University for Legal Studies and Research sponsored by the Bar Council of India and established under Karnataka Act 22 of 1986