DURBAN CONFERENCE, 25 YEARS ON – Paul Divakar Namala: “Solidarity and Resistance Work in the Long Run”

Protests during the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa, from 31 August to 7 September 2001. Credit: NCDHROpinion by Paul Divakar Namala (london)Tuesday, September 08, 2026Inter Press Service LONDON, September 8 (IPS) - My name is Paul Divakar Namala. I am the Executive Director of The Inclusivity Project and Convenor of the Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent. My work focuses on communities whose social status, occupations and exclusion are inherited across generations through caste, analogous hierarchies and systems rooted in traditional slavery. I am a Dalit. Dalits were historically treated as “untouchable” and placed at the bottom of, or outside, the caste hierarchy. This can shape every part of life: access to a common water source, where a child sits at school, where a family may live, what work a person is expected to perform and whether others will eat with or even be seen with them.Poverty is widespread in South Asia, but its burden falls disproportionately on Dalits because caste restricts access to land, education, dignified employment, public services and poli...