This 113-page report was produced as a “shadow report” in response to India’s submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The committee will review India’s compliance with the convention during hearings in Geneva on February 23 and 26.

Human Rights Watch and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law submit the following information to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Committee or CERD) for consideration in its review of India’s fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth periodic reports under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Convention or ICERD). This joint-submission is based on in-depth Human Rights Watch investigations on caste discrimination in India and the findings of Indian governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on caste-based abuses.