The UN just voted in favor of declaring the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest of all the human atrocities ever committed. It’s a decision much applauded globally … and maybe also a bit resented by countries that benefited from the slave trade as former colonial powers and might now need to pay reparations. I am personally in the applause camp but transatlantic slave trade isn’t the only grave crime! 

By no means am I saying that we can (or should) compare different atrocities committed by humanity. Every grave crime is grave in its own uniquely horrifying way! But if we were to use the exact criteria that the UN used for declaring transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime, we’d find that there have been crimes of equal or bigger proportions … THAT ARE STILL ONGOING TODAY!

What was the criteria that the UN used – 

Systemic Nature – transatlantic slave trade wasn’t made up of sporadic or isolated incidences but it was a systematic movement of slaves from African countries to the Americas.

Dehumanizing and Brutal – transatlantic slave trade wasn’t your “plain violence” in its nature like the uncountable number of war of kingdoms or empires that humanity engaged in but it dehumanized the victims and subjected them to brutal physical and psychological violence.

Scale – transatlantic slave trade affected the victims at a massive scale, estimated as over 10 million men, women and children directly (not to mention the hundreds of millions of their descendants who were and are still affected directly or indirectly).

Enduring Consequences – transatlantic slave trade not only lasted for over 400 years but had consequences that are still being felt today by hundreds of millions of people.

By using the same criteria as above, I can think of the following 3 things that should also qualify as the gravest crimes against humanity. Again, it’s not an exercise in comparing different tragedies in human history because you can’t really compare them, but an exercise in highlighting issues that should also be more visible.

Caste System

We’re all, some more than others, familiar with the Indian caste system – the society was divided into different classes called varna (closest translation being “caste”) where each class had a specific role to fulfill in the society but also a specific set of rights and restrictions. The lower castes were usually quite limited in their rights and the lowest class (which was actually not even on the class system but a level below the lowest class) – the untouchables – weren’t even considered human. 

Let’s apply the UN criteria to the Indian caste system – 

Systemic Nature – the lower castes were systematically discriminated against by codifying specific rules into the legal system, the education system, economics, politics, ethics and even morality. For example, the lower classes weren’t allowed to obtain education or open businesses, they were supposed to only engage in providing services (e.g. cleaning) to the upper classes.

Dehumanizing and Brutal – the lower classes, especially the untouchables, weren’t really considered humans. The upper classes could kill whole villages of lower classes without consequences, rape the women, brutally punish them for transgressions as small as “casting their shadow upon a person of an upper caste”. In many regions, the untouchables had to carry a drum with them in order to announce their presence in the public space so that the people of upper classes may “save themselves” from the sight of the shadow of the untouchable!

Scale – given how long the caste system lasted, it probably affected hundreds of million (or even over a billion) people, men, women, and children, and transgenders too! 

Enduring Consequences – the caste system lasted for at least 2000 years and was only made illegal in independent India with its own constitution in 1950. Though, despite it all, millions of Indians continue to suffer the consequences of the caste system even today.

Notes: 

1. Some people, including lots of Indians, might argue that the lower caste people today also receive preferential treatment in terms of the caste-based reservation in education and job-market. But this 7-decade old affirmative action by the Indian government can’t compensate for millennia of oppression, can it?! Plus, what about the still ongoing caste-based discrimination that happens on a daily basis in Indian society?!
2. Some people might argue that the caste system shouldn’t count as a tragedy of “humanity” when it was/is only limited to the Indian subcontinent. Well, by that argument, you could say that transatlantic slave trade was limited to Africa and Americas (and some parts of Europe) but didn’t really have a global scale (for example, Asia was pretty much untouched)!

Colonialism 

Colonialism was a superset of the transatlantic slave trade. So, by definition, it should automatically be considered THE gravest crimes against humanity. But for the purposes of this article, let’s apply the UN criteria to it – 

Systemic Nature – colonialism was never sporadic and never isolated, it was always (meticulously) planned and systematically carried out! The colonial powers systematically applied self-beneficial laws over a colony, systematically manipulated the local economy and job-markets to maximize their own financial rewards (for example, the British destroyed the weaving industry in India so that they could sell British machine-woven fabrics), and systematically oppressed any political dissidents. No other “grave crime” can be as systematic in nature as colonialism was!

Dehumanizing and Brutal – from cutting the hands of 1.2 to 10 million natives in the Congo “free state” (ironic, huh!) under Belgian colonial rule, to systematic mass rapes of women in today’s Namibia under colonial Germany, to a human-made famine in British India where over 3 million people died on the streets, to the heinously illogical discrimination system called “apartheid” in today’s South Africa (largely owing to the Afrikaaner/Dutch colonizers), the dehumanization and brutal violence of colonialism is unmatched!

Scale – colonialism affected large regions and the biggest populations of the world, directly or indirectly – people of all genders and ages. I am not sure if you could actually put a number on it but if you could, it would be in billions for direct and indirect impact! (Alone in India, the number will cross the Billion mark!)

Enduring Consequences – over 5 centuries of colonialism left an indelible mark on the world. In fact, many of the contemporary conflicts trace their roots back to the colonial period, be it the Rawandan genocide, the India-Pakistan wars, or the East-West Timor disputes. Even today, the former colonies continue to lag behind in technological and industrial development as a result of centuries of oppression by the colonial rulers. And the former colonizers continue to benefit from providing the more benign foreign (colonial) language services to the most destructive military technologies and weapons!

Notes: 

3. Some people might argue that colonialism is already sort of covered when we call transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crimes of humanity. But is it? It doesn’t cover the heinous crimes committed by colonial power against the natives in non-African colonies like Australia, India, Americas! And even within Africa, it doesn’t cover the crimes committed against the natives in their native land. Honestly, Scramble for Africa alone could qualify as one of the gravest crimes against humanity and it is only a part of the bigger colonial history!

Female Oppression

“There go the damned feminists!” some people might sigh at this point but you can’t leave out the longest running and the most dehumanizingly brutal of the crimes against humanity! 

Systemic Nature – female oppression has been sporadic and isolated (e.g. individual cases of horrific proportions) and it has been as systematic as any other human endeavor. From the early patriarchal human societies to the world we live in today, oppression of women (and people of non-binary genders and sexual orientation too) has been codified in all the systems of humanity – legal, social, financial, political, educational, …

Dehumanizing and Brutal – violence against women has been brutal and has taken all forms – physical (e.g. beatings), sexual (remember the 2012 Nirbhaya case?), psychological (e.g. forcing the victims of your crimes live alongside you IN SILENCE … FOR DECADES), and whatever else! All the laws and all literary and artistic works have been almost entirely by men for men, as if women didn’t even exist in the world. Talk about dehumanization!

Scale – when it comes to scale, female oppression is unmatched by any other human atrocity we can ever talk about – all over the globe, widespread from individual families to small tribes to large communities, and affecting, at any time, HALF OF THE HUMAN POPULATION (give or take a percentage point)! Some scholars estimate that over humanity’s existence on the planet, over 100 billion people have lived in total. Half of that is 50 BILLION … give or take a billion!

Enduring Consequences – you can’t talk about “enduring consequences” of female oppression because it wasn’t like an event or period in human history that has ended some time ago but continues having long-lasting impacts. No, female oppression has co-existed with human history itself and it continues to do so. Yes, its nature and intensity might have varied from time to time or from place to place but no one can deny that female oppression has been EVER PRESENT in all human societies in all spheres of human life! 

Notes: 

4. Yes, I said that we won’t (and shouldn’t) score or compare but if we did, female oppression would take the top spot among the gravest crimes against humanity … by some distance! And not to forget that within all other forms of crimes and discrimination, women always fare worse. For example, yes, the lower caste people were treated badly and given no opportunities, but within the same lower caste, women got even worse treatment or fewer opportunities than men! 

End Remarks

After centuries of unspeakable atrocities against African slaves during the transatlantic slave trade, humanity finally officially acknowledged it in the form of United Nations’ vote that marks it as the “gravest crime against humanity” (committed by humans itself, of course). It’s remarkable progress for humankind (or human“unkind”, if you will) but it makes you say “Seriously!? It takes a UN vote to acknowledge such an obvious thing?!” 

And of course, the UN decision also forces us to think about other “obvious” crimes against humanity. I only touched upon the Indian caste system, colonialism and female oppression. But there are many small and big candidates – the various genocides that were and are being committed in the name of religion, race (which is not even a thing, as per scientists), ethnicity, and culture.

The UN decision about the transatlantic slave trade will pave the way for at least some sort of compensation for those centuries of crime! Though, no amount of reparations paid by former colonial powers (if they end up paying it in the first place), can come even close to wiping the slate clean. Some might say, and quite justifiably so, that it will be too complicated and almost impossible to judge who should pay what sort of reparations to whom! Afterall, neither the original perpetrators, nor the original victims are alive today, and the history, politics, and economics are so convolutedly intricate that you can’t even calculate anything even if those people were alive. So, what’s the point? 

Well, the point is to acknowledge the obvious and to get the conversation started – in a systematic way, at scale, and hopefully with enduring consequences!