Church In Turmoil (Indolink.Com, 15/07/04).

-- By Dasu Krishnamoorty

Founder of communalism in the country, the Congress party, is back in power in alliance with parties that share similar thinking. The United Progressive Alliance is now on an overdrive to desaffronize (a synonym for ‘communalize’) all aspects of public life. Two minority commissions, reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh, fresh railway inquiry into Godhra arson and HRD advisory panel consisting of well-known communalists, are all evidence of a new fervor to re-ignite communal fires. In this exuberance, the UPA may feel free to extend benefits of reservation to Dalit Christians also. The result will be an explosive mixture of communalism and casteism. There is no quarrel with the government offering concessions, subsidies, doles, exemptions and exceptions to anyone deserving such benefit abjuring caste and religion as eligibility.

On the eve of its defeat in the election, the NDA regime declined to extend the benefit of reservation to Dalit Christians on the ground that the move could introduce stratification in a community that claims freedom from such discrimination. Social Justice minister Satya Narain Jatiya told the Lok Sabha at that time, “It might be misunderstood as though India is imposing its caste system among Christians.” The minister was wrong in assuming that Christian society is free from casteism.

The issue surfaced at a four-day Synod meeting of the Church of South India (CSI) early this year at Bangalore. The essence of the issue figured in an article P.N.Benjamin wrote for the Deccan Herald on the eve of the Synod meeting. He said, “The Church has sinned more than others in perpetuating social injustices against Dalit Christians. In Indian Christian communities, caste discrimination takes many forms. There are some churches built for separate groups. These places of worship even today retain their caste identity. Another example of casteist practice is allotting separate places in churches. Usually, the Christians of Scheduled Caste origins occupy the rear of the church. A glaring instance of caste distinction is found among the dead. The dead of the Dalit communities are buried in separate cemeteries.”

Benjamin quotes some interesting statistics: A study of all the landed properties of churches in India put together shows that the church is the second biggest landlord in the country, next only to the Government. In addition, the Church institutions and Church or Christians-led NGOs receive foreign financial support amounting to over Rs. 2500 crores per year. There is no transparency with regard to these funds as well as the massive income accruing from the elite schools, colleges and hospitals and also shopping complexes built all over the major cities in the country. The poor Dalit Christian does not even get the crumbs, leave alone participation in Church matters. There seems to be a vested interest in keeping the Dalit Christians where they are to maintain the status quo in the church.

Dalit Christians comprising 70 per cent of Christian population are already in turmoil, accusing the church of high caste discrimination. In the vanguard of their struggle is the Poor Christian Liberation Front that alleges that high caste Christians, after wrenching concessions from the government in the name of Dalits, are denying those benefits to Dalits in their fold. According to their leader, R.C.Francis, the church receives liberal funds from abroad and its top leaders set up schools and colleges that are open to the upper castes and not to Dalits. There is rampant casteism in Christianity that takes pride in the egalitarian nature of its society. Its missionaries sell dignity to the underclasses in the Hindu society but forget about it after their conversion to Christianity. The Hindu society at least throws up periodically reformers who champion the cause of Dalits who are useful to Christianity only to swell its flock. Only two years ago, the Catholic bishops meeting at Varanasi resolved to bury casteism among Christians.

Sometime ago, the UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand, reported that the appointment of India's first "dalit'' (low caste) archbishop evoked mixed reactions among church community in Andhra Pradesh. The Vatican came under attack for ignoring "ground realities'' in transferring Bishop Marampudi Joji of Vijayawada to Hyderabad, while others said his promotion as the state's metropolitan archbishop will bring "new life'' to the million-strong Andhra church. Expressing shock over the appointment, outgoing Archbishop Samineni Arulappa of Hyderabad said, "Rome is being taken for a ride. Rome does not know the ground realities.'' Out of 156 Catholic bishops in India, 150 bishops belong to the upper castes. Only six bishops are Dalits. Out of 12,500 Catholic priests, only 600 are from Dalit community. Though Dalits constitute 75 per cent of the Indian Christian community, the control over church is in the hands of 25 per cent upper caste Christians.

It is not as though the problems of Dalit Christians have not received attention from the government. Several commissions appointed by the government have referred to the disabilities Dalits suffered in Christian society. Kaka Kalelkar, chairman of the Backward Classes Commission of 1955, said, “We discovered with deep pain and sorrow that untouchability did obtain in the extreme south among Indian Christians, and Indian Christians were prepared in many places to assert that they were still guided by caste, not only in the matter of untouchability, but in social hierarchy of high and low. While the Harijans among the Hindus, classified as scheduled castes, stand a fair chance of bettering their condition under the Indian government’s reservation policy, their Christian counterparts stand twice discriminated.”

Kalelkar was referring to Dalit Christians in Kerala. Ten years later, the Kerala government named the Kumara Pillai Committee to report on the plight of Dalit Christians. The committee reported, “We are convinced that in practice converts to Christianity from scheduled castes are treated as socially backward.” This is only an understatement considering the need to be politically correct while making such observations. See what the Santhanam Committee reported five years after Kumar Pillai’s comment. “The same spirit of renaissance which animates the Indian scheduled castes has not spread to the Christian sections and that due to the absence of employment opportunities similar to those reserved for scheduled castes, there was no temptation for the converts to go into higher education.”

Two more reports that came a decade later found that the status of Dalits in the Christian society remained the same as it was in 1955 when the Kalelkar Commission was appointed. First, the Chidambaram Committee report of 1975 said, “Casteism is practiced widely among the members of the Christian fold as judged by the characteristic of the caste system and going by the economic status of the Harijan Christians. It is evident that they are poverty-stricken lot.” The infamous Mandal Commission report conceded the reality of caste among Indian Christians as in any other community. The commission cited the example of the Christian community in Kerala, which, according to its report, is not only divided into various denominations on the basis of beliefs and rituals but also into various ethnic groups on the basis of their caste background.

On the eve of Pope John Paul’s visit to India in November of 1999, Dr Mary John, president of Dalit Christian Liberation Movement, wrote: “Since the powers, authority, official posts, organizations and financial resources are all in the absolute hold of the caste-priests, nuns, bishops and the religious, the Dalit Christians are not able to get an equal share for them in education, employment opportunities, welfare and development schemes available in the church. This has hindered the progress of Dalit Christians for long and has forced them to the situation of fighting for their rights. But the church authorities are least worried about this.”

These reports clearly indicate first, that the Hindu society periodically reforms itself as evidenced from the appointment of several commissions, reservation of jobs, seats in educational institutions and several institutions for the development of backward classes. Two, that unprincipled politicians and Christian missionaries spread lies about social realities in the country, the former to boost their vote banks and the latter to convert gullible and illiterate people. In a memorandum to President K R Narayanan, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani in October 1998, Dalit Christians claimed that all the backward class commissions including the Mandal Commission had “proved beyond doubt that a change of religion does not bring about any change in the status of the untouchable converts.”

About ten million Dalit Christians of India feel cheated by the church that converted them to Christianity with the assurance that they would be given equal rights and status in the community. But now Dalit Christians are more untouchable in Christianity than they were in their original faith, according to Francis. “Swadeshi Church could be a solution to this problem as the management of our organizations will come into our hands. Today we have to look to World Council of Churches (WCC) and Vatican for every little effort to better our community. This is a fact that the church organizations are not “Dalit Christians’ friend”, he said in New Delhi recently. Commenting on the recent call for Indianisation of church, Francis emphasized the need for a countrywide debate on the issue.

He said that the church and their NGOs are misleading the Christian community. “World Christian Council and different church organizations will never agree to this demand since it will curtail their administrative powers and huge foreign funds received by the Church from western countries. The Government of India needs to initiate action in this regard,” he said pointing out that the PCLM would start an awareness campaign to demand equal rights for Dalit Christians in church organizations and to start discussion on the concept of Swadeshi Church in the Christian community.

How can a ‘secular’ government intervene to secure justice to Dalit Christians without attracting the charge of intervention in church affairs?