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Supreme Court and the SCs
Tuesday March 11 2008 08:19 IST
P RADHAKRISHNAN
THE observations by the Supreme Court on whether the Christians
would admit that they practise caste system and the Dalits among
them face social discrimination, and the query since when the
Muslims have started following the caste system seem to convey its
perception of social deprivations in terms of religious texts, and
its confusion between text and context. To place the debate in
perspective there are six issues to be discussed here.
One, as the emergence of Dalits among the Hindus is often attributed
to Manu's misdeeds through his now infamous injunctions, and the SC
Hindus are the lower segment of the Hindus, the Christian and Muslim
demands raise the question whether there are corresponding segments
among them. The answer is 'yes' for at least three reasons:
(a) There is a world of difference between religion as ideology and
religion as praxis; and change of religion by itself does not change
the social reality through which religion expresses itself. Stated
differently, the social disabilities of several centuries do not
vanish by a mere change of religion; more so, when the converts do
not live in a society of their own religion, but live in the society
of the dominant religion which they have left. It is precisely for
this reason that there has been indigenisation of the religion of
the converts. Consequently, the Christian and Muslim reality in
India is not the same as in other countries, and it is meaningless
to apply to it textual ideals of equal brotherhood and so on. In
this context it is important to recall the observations of Dr. B. R.
Ambedkar, in his 'Annihilation of Caste', that caste being primarily
the breath of the Hindus, "the Hindus have fouled the air all over
and everybody is infected, Sikh, Muslim, and Christian."
(b) Far from being proselytism, that is, making of individual
converts who at conversion are abstracted from their social and
cultural context, conversions in India have been migration from one
religion to another; or conversion of individuals and whole groups
without detaching them from their social context.
(c) The Catholic tradition of accommodation. When Robert de Nobili
established the mission in Madurai in 1606, he set himself up as a
Christian sanyasi, separating from most contacts with low-caste
Christians and conforming to high caste patterns of behaviour in
food, dress, etc. His initial converts were from the high castes,
including Brahmins, and he allowed them to maintain most of their
customs. They were not required or encouraged to break caste by
associating with the mainly Paravar Christian congregation or with
foreign Christians. "By becoming a Christian", he wrote, "One does
not renounce his caste, nobility, or usages. The idea that
Christianity interfered with them has been impressed upon the people
by the devil, and is the great obstacle to Christianity. " Thus, de
Nobili's converts were allowed to retain their tuft (kudumi), sacred
thread, customary bathing and food rules, and all the regulations
governing social intercourse. It was therefore possible for them to
remain Christians within Hindu society.
In spite of papal decrees of 1734 and 1744 denouncing untouchability
as alien to Christianity, and widespread criticism of the Jesuits
who were identified with this policy of accommodation, it became
generally accepted among Catholics that caste was a civil
institution, which could be used for evangelistic purposes and
maintained with only minor modifications within the Church. A major
outcome of this has been the social reality of Dalit Christians,
caste-based segregation of the converts within the church, and caste
discrimination both among the clergy and the laity.
Two, the issues raised by the court are not new; they were debated
by the colonial administration in the context of Hindu converts to
Christianity. To draw upon a part of this debate, in the context of
representations to the Madras government on securing to Indian
Christian pupils of backward origin the concessions admissible to
the backward classes under the Madras Educational Rule, in
1924 the Director of Public Instruction wrote:
Christianity is a religion while Panchamas (present SCs) … form a
social class with a definite place in the caste system of the Hindus
and it is not possible for any single individual to profess two
different religions, Christianity and Hinduism at one and the same
time and furthermore Christianity does not accept any caste. So that
logically a person may be a Christian in which case he cannot accept
any caste system, and is not a member of a backward class or he may
be a Hindu Panchama or Adi Dravida in which case, he may be a member
of a backward class. But he cannot be at one and the same time both,
Christian and Hindu (Panchama), both non-backward and backward.
Responding to the DPI's argument the Education Secretary contended
that conversion by itself does not automatically and materially
alter the economic condition of the classes or remove their
educational backwardness.
Three, though the SC list first appeared in a specific colonial
context as part of the Government of India Act 1935, under pressures
from the Depressed Classes and the prolonged campaign of their
leader Dr. Ambedkar, and the groups included in the list were only
Hindu Untouchables, what was the purpose of creating the SC list as
part of the Constitution? It was not for abolition of
untouchability, that too among the Hindus alone; the provision for
that was in the fundamental rights under Article 17, which refers to
only untouchability and its practice in any form without reference
to religion. If the SC list was for social amelioration of the
groups included in it, it is only legitimate for Christians and
Muslims to demand that the groups similarly placed among them as the
Hindu SCs are also enumerated and included in the list. Failure to
do so will perpetrate the Hindu tilt of the state in implementing a
major provision of a secular Constitution.
Four, though the Government of India asked the Ranganath Mishra
Commission on religious and linguistic minorities to examine the
demand of Christians and Muslims, and the commission recommended
delinking SC status from religion by an amendment to the
Constitution (SCs) Order, 1950, and inclusion of Dalits among
Christians and Muslims in the SC list, the refusal of the government
to make the report public makes its bona fides suspect.
Five, though the National Commission for Scheduled Castes has
endorsed the recommendation of the Mishra Commission, its rider that
inclusion of Dalit Christians and Muslims in the SC list should not
encroach upon the benefits of those accessing reservations is
questionable. Once the Dalit Christians and Muslims are included in
the SC list they should be part of the same list, eligible for the
entire package of affirmative action including political
representation as now available to the SCs.
Six, if Christians and Muslims did not recognise Dalits among them
and demand the same treatment to them as to the Hindu Dalits till
recently, it is the state that needs to be blamed. Had the state
paid adequate attention to the SCs immediately after the
Constitution came into force and continued it systematically, say
for ten years, affirmative action as envisaged in the Constitution
would have come to an end long ago. By its political chicanery and
pussyfooting, as R H Tawney rightly stated in his classic work
Equality, the state has only prolonged its indulgence in "inducing a
thousand donkeys... to sweat by the prospect of a carrot that could
be eaten by one." That indulgence has proved to be an irreversible
and costly perversion of the very idea of welfarism.
The writer is Professor of Sociology, Madras Institute of
Development Studies, Chennai
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