Dalit
Christology
Excerpt from
Introduction to Christian Theologies in India by Laji Chacko, pp 196-199
A.P. Nirmal
claims God of Old Testament prophets is a servant God- a God who serves.
Service of others has always been the privilege of Dalit community in India. In
order to prove the dalitness of Jesus A.P. Nirmal brings pathos from Jesus’
genealogy. The genealogy highlights Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, who
outwitted her father-in-law by sleeping with him; Rahab the harlot who helped
the Israelite spies; Solomon Son of David. These minute details of Jesus’
ancestry suggest his dalit conditions. Jesus used the title ‘son of Man’, this
title got three significance and the second way in which the Son of Man is used
to indicate his suffering and death. These saying speak of him encountering
rejection, mockery, and contempt, suffering and final death. He underwent these
Dalit experience as the prototype of all dalits. According to Maria Arul Raja,
God deliberately took on vulnerable human flesh to show complete solidarity
with the suffering masses as well as restoring their lost human dignity. Jesus
is viewed as the Messiah in relation with his suffering to provide salvation to
the marginalized including the Dalits. For James Massey, God preferred to be
born as a poor person and this reflects the fact that in our context Jesus is a
Dalit, the poorest of the poor. Dalit theologians rightly connect the dalit experience
and Jesus experience.
Nirmal also
believes that Jesus had the Dalitness in him both to serve and suffer. He says
that Jesus is like a dhobi (washerman) or bhangi (sweeper) who strives to
eradicate the dirt from society, but still he was rejected, treated as inferior
and humiliated. He quotes Isaiah (Is. 53:1-8) describing Jesus as a suffering
servant who is like a lamb, oppressed, grief-stricken, humiliated, whipped and
led to be put to death for no wrong that he committed. So Nirmal presents that
the servant-hood of Jesus, his rejection, and the humiliations that he faced
are related to dalit experience. This view of Nirmal is criticized by
Balasundaram, who argues that the servility of Dalits should not be glorified
as that of Christ as it was an imposed humility, whereas the serving nature of
Jesus was his preferred option to save others. This position of Balasundaram clarifies
that the servant-hood of Dalits was forced on them against their will, but
Jesus’s servant-hood was by his own voluntary will and was a preferential
choice to save all humans.
Felix Wilfred
claims that the death of Jesus “outside the gate” of the city of Jerusalem is a
particular moving events for Dalits. For, in traditional Indian society, since
the Dalits were treated as untouchables, they were segregated from the main
village, and they had to confine themselves to habitations in a separate place outside
the village. Here the Dalits identify their plight with the situation of Jesus,
cast out and killed outside the gates of Jerusalem. The Dalit experience of
rejection also finds connection with the life of Jesus.
For M.E.
Prabhakar Christology is not to be understood in terms of power but what is
humble and frailly human… it is a call to make sacrifices on behalf of the
poor. He wants an Indian expression of Dalit Christology and urges to create
indigenous Dalit concepts or expressions. The Dalit way of expression is
actually quite contrary; they are very fuming in nature and we could find a protest
in them; be it songs, dances, musical instruments, worship or rituals. So
therefore, when we use these Dalit expressions to spell Christology, we will
certainly end up with an active, effective and result-oriented Christology.
Today, there is
a shift in the concepts of Dalit Christology among Dalit Christians, thereby
clearly setting aside the erstwhile archaic models put forward since the birth
of Dalit theology. Jesus not only showed his solidarity by suffering with the
suffering people, but also tried to find the root cause of the suffering and
oppression, and intended to motivate them to overcome their suffering conditions,
by going to the extent of making far-reaching statements, when he said that he
“had not come to bring peace, but a sword”.
While having
mostly focused on the aspects of suffering and pain, Dalit theology overlooked
the liberation aspect, which is an integral part of Dalit social and cultural
life. However, newer and more relevant ideas and models, which have been able
to overcome the drawbacks of previous models continued to flow from other quarters.
For instance, Sathianathan Clarke presents Christ as a “Drum”, which is a
vibrating source for Dalit Liberation. Antony Raj advocates logical
disobedience to celebrate their human dignity. Commenting on this he says, “I
feel that is better for us Dalits to die on our feet than to live on our knees
before insolent men”. Dalit Christology sees in Jesus the embodiment of
equality, respect for human persons and dignity. It highlights Jesus’
non-hierarchical approach to people, and his resistance to traditional
oppressive laws and injunctions. Dalit Christology present Jesus as the Messiah
of the Dalit community and there is a visible connection between the life of
Jesus and the dehumanized life experience of Dalit community thus he provide
them hope against all atrocities and injustice.
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