Author: P.N. Benjamin
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: January 9, 2004
Twenty-two bishops and nearly three
hundred delegates from dioceses spread all over the four Southern States
will descend on Bangalore to attend the four-day Synod meeting of the Church
of South India (CSI), beginning on January 10. The CSI runs 2000 schools,
130 colleges and 104 hospitals. More than 75% of its four million members
are Dalit Christians.
Social justice has been one of the
main concerns of the Catholic and Protestant Churches in India since the
1960s. Though social justice is a profound idea, yet, like many other profound
ideas, it gets profaned when men who mouth it are sans character. That
is why "almost 20 million Dalit Christians have been tamed and reduced
to eternal slaves of the organised Church bodies," as a statement issued
by a Dalit Christian organisation revealed recently.
To corrupt George Orwell's famous
aphorism: all Indian Christians are equal, but some are more equal than
others. By embracing Christianity, the Dalits have not found themselves
emancipated from economic and social inequalities. Conversions have neither
offered the Dalits a way of escape from the bondage of caste nor have they
fostered the social transformation of the Dalit Christians. They still
live under the same conditions of discrimination, exploitation and oppression.
The Dalit Christians are "twice
alienated', both by the Government and the Church. On the one hand they
are denied, as Christians, the rights and benefits availed of by their
fellow Dalits, and on the other, as Dalits, they are dominated and persecuted
by the upper castes and the elite Dalits within the Church. The majority
of Dalit Christians suffers from economic disparities, demoralising social
discrimination and cruel denial of equal rights.
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
origin occupy the rear of the church. A flaring instance of caste distinction
is found among the dead. The dead of the Dalit communities are buried in
separate cemeteries
It is said that charity begins at
home. But, the home (Church) where it begins, the Dalits Christians do
not belong. According to a study, all the landed properties of churches
in India put together, 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 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.
The Church's call for re-distribution
of national resources in favour of Dalit Christians will be heeded only
when its own resources are re-allocated and used with a clear partiality
for Dalits in its own fold. The Church's fearless stand for justice will
no longer let it remain silent about the discrimination within the Church
- a matter of shame to its members and an embarrassment to its friends.
To a religion that has always prided
itself on the advocacy of complete equality of all human beings, irrespective
of caste, colour or race, the charge of discrimination within its own family
is galling. Strangely enough, the Church has won its adherents in this
country on the strength of its teaching about the dignity of all human
beings and its rejection of distinctions based on birth, colour and race.
Now it finds itself charged with failures on this very score. To the untouchables,
the oppressed and those victimized in socially stratified society, Christianity
once brought a message of hope. The reason it has lost its appeal is not
that it has ceased to preach equality, but it has lost its nerve to practise
it. It has compromised its own teaching.
Church of South India Synod Executive
Committee recently declared: "Caste discrimination is a blot against humanity.
Caste is a direct assault on 200 million Dalits of India denying them their
dignity and humanity and as Church we condemn this draconian discrimination."
After reading it, one is tempted to tell the CSI leaders: "Physician, heal
thyself!"
The Church must realize that the
Dalit Christians' plight calls for a deeper analysis of the problem so
that Christian leaders do not throw stones at the caste system prevailing
in Hinduism, but look to something more meaningful and constructive within
itself.
