ABSTRACT
Representatives of groups affected by caste-based discrimination have used transnational social mobilisation to bring attention to the plight of their communities in Asia, Africa and the diaspora and to put pressure on states to comply with their rights. This chapter will show how activists have secured international recognition of their identity and institutionalised new norms for state behaviour by using an ‘adjacency’ strategy for norm emergence linked to discrimination based on ‘work and descent’ and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The social construction of a new transnational identity frame will also be discussed. The 2001 World Conference Against Racism was a key stage in their norm entrepreneurship but they have benefited from ongoing support from numerous United Nations human rights mechanisms. International human rights NGOs have also been instrumental to this success. The main focus in this chapter is on the experience of Dalits in India and the role of the state of India in opposing norm entrepreneurship on caste-based discrimination. This chapter will consider some of the factors that have shaped this opposition.
