Excerpts:**** “SC” and “Dalit” simply refer to different sets of people. Where “Dalit” refers to all those Indians, past and present, traditionally regarded as outcasts and untouchable, “SC” is a modern governmental category that explicitly excludes Christian and Muslim Dalits. For the current version of the President’s Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, which tells us who will count as SC for the purposes of constitutional and legal protections, is entirely unambiguous: “no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.” ****
“This was not always the case. The SC category was first created in 1931 to specify a subcategory of the “depressed classes” — a portmanteau term that referred to “untouchables” most often, but in British colonial usage also included those who were then called “hill tribes” and “criminal tribes”— who were to be listed, or “scheduled” as the beneficiaries of more comprehensive state provisions. The British made welfare provisions for all castes traditionally treated as untouchable, irrespective of whether those castes chose to call themselves Hindu or to follow Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. It was only under Congress rule, in 1950, that the President’s Order redefined SC on the basis of religious criteria. From that point onwards, Dalits who had converted out of Hinduism lost not only reservations, but also, after 1989, protection under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. Later, SC was expanded to include Sikh and Buddhist Dalits, but official discrimination against Muslim and Christian Dalits remains.”*** * “After half a century of struggle against this injustice, a major moral victory was achieved by Dalit activists when the Ranganath Mishra Commission Report (2007) officially admitted — in light of overwhelming social scientific evidence and testimony — that Christian and Muslim Dalits suffer the same forms of discrimination as their Hindu counterparts. Recognising that Dalits do not cease to be Dalits when they convert to another religion, the committee recommended that the official discrimination against Christian and Muslims Dalits be ended by restoring to them, without delay, their SC status. However, this moral victory remains a dead letter. Half a decade has passed and the commission’s recommendation continues to be ignored by the Congress leadership, and by politicians across the spectrum. “**** “Until the Mishra Commission is implemented, the equation of Dalit and SC is false. In the Class X textbook, students are informed that “In our country Dalits tend to be poor and landless.” Rewriting “Dalit” as “SC” in this case, as the Thorat committee recommends, would imply that Dalit converts have escaped deprivation, and literally erases Christian and Muslim Dalits from the pages of history.”**** ** ** “Discrimination against Dalits spans all religious communities. It is not a Hindu problem, it is an Indian problem. By adopting language that excludes Christian and Muslim Dalits, the proposed textbook whitewashes this reality” **** ** ** *The writer is director, Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Goettingen, Germany***** ** ** http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-textbook-case-of-exclusion/973711/0****
