With the Tokugawa shogunate’s consolidation of power, a hereditary status order hardened across Japan. Outcaste categories such as eta and hinin were positioned outside (or at the bottom edge of) the formal hierarchy and were often tied to occupations stigmatized as “polluting,” shaping the antecedents of later Burakumin discrimination.
By the latter half of the 17th century, Tokugawa governance (bakuhan) and the shi-nō-kō-shō class framing were more firmly established. In practice, the broader status system also maintained outcaste communities as socially segregated and legally constrained, reinforcing inherited discrimination.
From the early 1700s, authorities in parts of Japan imposed or tightened rules on clothing, hairstyles, and other markers that made outcaste status more visible. Such restrictions reinforced social separation and helped sustain community-level stigmatization.
The Meiji government issued the Emancipation Declaration (often associated with the kaihōrei), formally abolishing the status labels eta and hinin and reclassifying former outcastes as "new commoners" (shinheimin). Legal change, however, did not eliminate entrenched prejudice or socioeconomic exclusion.
Following the 1871 declaration, violent backlash erupted in various areas: attacks and raids on Buraku communities (sometimes described as “eta-hunting”) sought to punish or reverse the new formal equality. The unrest demonstrated how strongly local social norms resisted legal reforms.
The nationwide Rice Riots intensified social unrest and mass politics in Japan. Burakumin participation and subsequent repression contributed to the momentum for a self-directed national liberation movement rather than reliance on philanthropic “reconciliation” initiatives.
The Zenkoku Suiheisha (National Levelers’ Association) was founded in Kyoto, becoming the first nationwide organization created by Burakumin to confront discrimination. It promoted self-respect and direct action (including kyūdan, or public denunciation of discriminatory acts).
As Japan’s wartime political controls tightened, independent movements were pressured to merge into state-aligned structures. The Suiheisha was ordered to disband as a “thought group” and dissolved, curtailing organized Burakumin activism during the war years.
After Japan’s 1945 surrender, activists revived the movement by forming the National Committee for Buraku Liberation (also translated as Buraku Liberation National Committee). Postwar constitutional equality provisions provided a new legal framework, though living conditions and discrimination persisted.
At its tenth national conference, the postwar national committee formally changed its name to the Buraku Liberation League (BLL), consolidating organizational identity for long-term advocacy against discrimination in employment, marriage, and public life.
Following intensified activism—including a major 1961 march to Tokyo—Japan’s government established the Dōwa Policy Advisory Council to investigate Buraku discrimination and living conditions, marking an important shift toward nationally coordinated policy responses.
The council’s recommendations (submitted to the prime minister in August 1965) asserted that resolving the Buraku problem was a responsibility of the state and emphasized civil-rights infringement and structural deprivation (not racial difference) as key issues—creating a policy blueprint for later “Dōwa” measures.
Japan enacted the Special Measures Law for Dōwa Projects (often discussed as the Dōwa Projects Special Measures Law), initiating large-scale, time-limited public investment to improve housing, infrastructure, and services in designated Dōwa areas. The law became a central policy instrument in addressing (and also administratively defining) Buraku-targeted inequality.
Burakumin communities and discrimination in Japan (c. 1603–1969)
