Caste and the Conventions

Abstract After the Second World War, the United Nations emblematised a new, liberal political order of which many post-colonial states wanted to be authors. India chose to do this by championing the cause of overcoming racial discrimination, launching a strong campaign against South Africa to position itself as the spokesperson of the Afro-Asian bloc. This article revisits India’s otherwise well-known campaign for legal protections against racial discrimination at three treaty bodies – the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination – to map the Brahminical vocabularies the state devised to justify its refusal to proscribe caste-based discrimination. To this end, the article undertakes an ethno-diplomatic study of India’s cosmopolitan delegates at United Nations treaty bodies to show how their selection was a confirmation of the inherent Brahminism of international law. In so doing, the article shows how Brahminism feeds the governing structures of Euromodern international law. Through this study, the article also excavates the key discursive and legal strategies employed by India to transition from an advocate of racial equality to being a staunch critic of international legal interventions on caste discrimination.