Without going into details of how enlightened Hindus have dealt with the
unconscionable practice of untouchability, let us audit the record of the
Church in India with regard to the dalits.
The dalits constitute 15% of the
total Indian population and 20% of the Hindu population. As per the 2001
census, there are 24.20 million Christians in India of which the Christians
of South India constitute 12.5 million, more than half the total Christian
population of India, and those of the North-east, 5.4 million. The total
population of Tamil Nadu Christians is 3.8 million, Karnataka one million,
Kerala 6 million, Andhra Pradesh 1.2 million and Goa 0.4 million. Dalits
constitute 65% of the total South Indian Christian population. Some
Christian groups even claim that dalits constitute 70% of the Christians of
Tamil Nadu. But the secular intellectuals of this country and the US State
Department, who screech that religious freedom includes the right of
Christian missionaries to convert Hindus, have not cared to answer the
pertinent question, "what is the attitude of the Church and its Hierarchy to
social empowerment of dalit Christians within the community given the high
percentage of the dalits and tribals in the total Christian population and
the power-sharing equation in the Christian hierarchy between the priests
belonging to the upper castes and the dalits?"
As per the data currently available on the Catholic Bishops Conference of
India website,
The CBCI has over 200 members-bishops from the Latin, Syro-Malabar and the
Syro-Malankara ecclesial traditions in the country among whom are 155 heads
of the dioceses, of whom there are 3 cardinals, 29 Archbishops and 123
bishops. There are 2 co-adjutor bishops (one of whom is a co-adjutor
Archbishop), 12 auxiliary bishops and 36 retired bishops.
A squeamish media and dishonest activists taking up the cause of dalits in
Durban, in the US State Department and in the European Parliament have never
summoned the courage to ask the Catholic Church to make public the number of
dalit and tribal bishops, archbishops and cardinals in their fold. Except
for Goa and Kerala, in the rest of India, dalits and tribal people
constitute the major percentage of Christians and yet the Christians who
claim that the dalits are voluntarily converting to the Christian faith to
end discrimination and to empower themselves, have not told us how many
dalits and tribal people have been elevated to the highest positions of
bishops, vicars-general, priests, directors, professors in seminaries, and
surgeons and heads of departments in their hospitals and medical colleges. The
Christian community has not told us if their premier educational
institutions reserve 30% of their seats for dalit Christian students, if at
least 30% reservation is maintained in the recruitment of dalit teachers and
professors in St Stephen's, in New Delhi, in Loyola College in Chennai and
in Christian Medical College, Vellore. What is the power-sharing equation of
the positions held by upper-caste and dalit Christians in the schools,
colleges and hospitals run by the Christian missionaries in this country?
How many dalit or tribal Christians have risen to the highest positions in
these Christian social, educational and religious organizations? Unasked and
unanswered questions, these.
Anti-Hindu activists working for the 'dalit cause' have not dared to address
themselves to this question just as the US has not dared to address itself
to the issue of its flawed democracy. In the US, which prides itself on
being the world's oldest democracy, even after centuries of democracy, no
woman and no African-American, Jew, Hindu or Muslim has ever been considered
to even participate in the race for the White House. And the US State
Department and the USCIRF lecture to the Indian government on human rights
of dalits and women! Notwithstanding American double-standards on equal
rights and religious freedom, Nirmala Deshpande, Teesta Setalvad, John
Dayal, John Prabhudoss, Cedric Prakash, Kamal Mitra Chenoy and others
routinely depose against the Hindu community before the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom and the US State Department's
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor!!
Let us see what one of the highest-ranking members of the Vatican Hierarchy
has to say in this regard. Archbishop George Zus, apostolic pro-nuncio to
India addressed the Catholic Bishops' Council in December 1991, in Pune. In
his inaugural address to the Catholic Bishops, he stated, "The dalit
Christians make 65% of the ten million Christians in the South, but less
than 4% of the parishes are entrusted to dalit priests. There are no dalits
among the 13 Catholic Bishops' Council of Tamil Nadu or among the
Vicars-general and the Rectors of seminaries and Directors of social
assistance centres". ("Dalits in India" by John Massey, Manohar
Publications, New-Delhi, 1995, page 82.) John Massey is a Punjabi dalit
Christian. The secular intellectual establishment and the Christian
community it seems is ignorant about this simmering discontent among the
dalits who converted to the Christian faith hoping to be empowered. And yet,
the dalits still within the Hindu fold have risen to the highest positions
in all walks of life including to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Sadly, little has
changed in 2006 for the dalits within the Christian fold.
Much noise is also made about the despicable practice of untouchability
which is placed at the door of Hindu dharma even though there is no
religious sanction for it in the religious content of our traditions. Be
that as it may but untouchability is not the only form of discrimination
faced by the dalits. There are other forms of discrimination too and, as
shown above, these concern their positions in the Christian institutions and
also their marriage practices. What is the percentage of inter-caste
marriages among the Christians belonging to the upper-castes and how many of
the upper-caste converts to Christianity have married into families of the
dalit Christians? How many upper-caste Christians will accept the holy water
from a dalit Christian priest, if any, and in how many churches and
cemeteries have walls been erected to separate the upper-caste laity from
the dalits, in death as in life? If dalits are indeed converting to
Christianity, not because of force, allurement or coercion, but voluntarily
to empower themselves, to end discrimination and to improve the quality of
their lives, then it is relevant to ask our editorialists and human rights
activists, how many have indeed been so 'empowered' in Christian
institutions and organizations and if social discrimination of the dalits
within Christianity has indeed ended.
P.N.Benjamin
