DALITS

DALITS

Dalits have long endured the injustice and indignity imposed on them by the caste system, which operates in various forms through South Asia, especially in India. They have suffered discrimination, dispossession and subjugation, and the theory of karma has been used to make them accept their plight as their punishment for sins committed in a previous life. The name they have chosen for themselves, Dalit, is apt.

It comes from a root word dal, which is also found in the OT. In Hebrew it literally means “crushed”, “hanging down”, “languid”, “weakened”, “low” and “feeble”. Unlike the Dalits in South Asia, the people referred to by this name in the OT were not untouchables, but the “poorest” of the poor (2 Kgs 24:14; Jer 52:15). The word used to describe them emphasises their broken condition rather than just their poverty.

The origins of the South Asian caste system may lie in the subjugation of the original inhabitants of the region by the invading Aryans in the Vedic Age (1750-500 BC). In the centuries that have elapsed since then, the system has not gone unchallenged. Both Mahavira (540-468 BC) and the Buddha (563-483 BC) rejected it, but Buddhism did not find widespread acceptance in India. Dalits also experienced some emancipation under Muslim rule after AD 800, in that they were allowed to serve in the army. The Sufi sect of Islam also advocated social equality. Then in the twelfth century AD the Hindu Bhakti movement undermined the caste system by emphasising belief in one God, the equality of all castes and the unity of religions.

This movement later produced great saints and poets like Namdev and Ravidas, both of whom belonged to the Sudra or lowest/servant caste.

Despite these movements towards equality, the caste system continued. In the British era, Dalit self-assertion contributed to the 1857 Uprising. When Mangal Pandey, an upper-caste Hindu soldier, refused to give water to an untouchable on the ground that his touch would pollute the vessel, the untouchable reacted by taunting him that the cartridges he would have to bite off were coated with pork and beef fat. Pork was anathema to Muslims and beef to Hindus. This shock, in combination with other events, led to the full-blown Sepoy Mutiny, later referred to as the First War of Indian Independence. The British put down the mutiny and assumed direct government of India.

The next phase of the Dalit struggle against oppression was marked by the mass conversions of entire Dalit groups to egalitarian religions, particularly Christianity. These conversions shook the foundations of the Indian social order. So did the spread of Western education and the Western legal system, new land policies, industrial development and the rise of movements advocating for democracy and civil rights. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, one of the first Dalits to receive higher education, propelled Dalit consciousness to new heights by exposing oppressive caste-driven conditions. He argued that liberation was possible if the untouchables pursued self-organisation, education and protest.

Dr Ambedkar subsequently converted to Buddhism along with nearly 400,000 of his followers. This event in 1956 began what was later to be known as Neo-Buddhism (the modern Buddhist revivalist movement). Interestingly, in designing Neo-Buddhism, Dr Ambedkar closely followed the patterns and structures of Christianity.

The famous Ambedkar-Gandhi 1932 Poona Pact gave shape to the present reservation policy mandating that certain places in schools, government offices and public sector units be reserved for Dalits.

Unfortunately, as a result, Dalits are still defined in terms of their relationship to other castes. Moreover, when Dalits turn from Hinduism and embrace Sikhism, Islam or Christianity, they are often denied access to positions and benefits reserved for Dalits. The result has been that some Christian Dalits have publicly reverted back to Hinduism while remaining Christians at heart.

The Dalit Christian movement gained visibility in an all-India demonstration in New Delhi on 17 August 1990. This demonstration was organised to protest the continuing marginalisation of Dalits within the church and the withholding from Christian Dalits of facilities extended to Hindu Dalits under the 1950 Presidential Order.

Although the church in South Asia has publicly declared its support for Dalits and its opposition to caste discrimination, the caste system is still very much part of the church and the lives of Christians in this region. To some extent, this may be traced back to the missionary period, when foreign missionaries found it difficult to understand and deal with casteism and its ramifications. Some of them opposed it totally, while others tried to adapt it and use it rather than reject it altogether.

Today, in some parts of the country, there is widespread casteism within the church, with opposition to inter-caste marriages and even to embracing Dalits as full members of the church, with the same rights and privileges as all other members. On the other hand, in North India, for example, a significant majority of church members are from Dalit and Adivasi (tribal) backgrounds, and Christianity is thus perceived as a religion of the untouchables. This, in turn, creates problems in reaching out to other groups.

Churches must be sensitive to the discrimination experienced by Dalits and should set up specialised structures or strategies to equip and empower them with knowledge and information about their rights and duties, to mobilise them into organised bodies and to enhance advocacy for their education in state, private and church-run educational institutions.