Baptised, but boundary remains
by Sandhya Jain
The gutter inspectors are out, revelling in the discomfort of devout
Hindus, telling us exactly what’s wrong with us. To begin with, it’s
the Brahmins and the caste system, a euphemism for the fact that we’re
still a predominantly Hindu society. Then it’s those few Hindu mathams
that still enjoy the wealth and eminence characteristic of the
pre-Islamic era, and do not have to beg for survival. Indeed, they can
establish schools, universities, libraries, hospitals and clinics and
give the soup-for-your-soul merchants a run for their money.
Believers in the one true God (whoever that is, since every Islamic and
Christian sect claims monopoly) warn that mandirs peddle superstition
and exploit gullible followers. It is only corporate America, annually
pushing millions of dollars into the "faith-based" humanitarian
industry, which has the right to stalk the poor and vulnerable in the
name of social service. And it has powerful native allies who can tick
off the Kanchi Matham for serving devoted Dalit Hindus, and tell the
Shankaracharya to confine his activities to the daily "arti". If we are
a soft State as evidenced in our attitude towards Pakistan’s continued
jihadi activities, it is equally true that we are a soft people who
have taken the continued humiliation of Swamigal lying down.
Recently a leading US magazine (secular in the uniquely White American
way) tried to whitewash Francis Xavier’s bloody legacy and convince us
that because hundreds of Christians (native and tourists) flock to his
once-intact-but-since-disintegrated body, he was a great saint (figure
that out, if you can). The Inquisition may have been excessive, but its
noble objective was saving the heathens.
The trouble with conversions is that, like a dog that runs after a
moving car and wouldn’t know what to do if he caught it, the
missionaries appear clueless about what to do with the saved (sic)
souls. In the West, Christians continued to mistreat their slaves after
converting them to Christianity, which is why the liberated slaves are
striking back through the Black Muslim movement. India’s contemporary
Dalit movement is in crisis because it is largely financed and
indoctrinated by American and British proselytizers. It is heartening
that a few intrepid souls are venturing to challenge these instruments
of neo-colonial geo-politics and find their own voice. Though ignored
by the secular media, they nonetheless have a case.
Earlier in September this year, several hundred activists of the Poor
Christian Liberation Movement (a Dalit Christian body) held a dharna at
Jantar Mantar to protest the "increasing corruption in Church
organisations". They urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure
transparency in the functioning of Christian NGOs that misuse foreign
aid received for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden.
The PCLM alleged that some Christian NGOs were torturing and oppressing
workers who objected to the mis-utilisation and embezzlement of funds.
Demanding an enquiry into the affairs of these NGOs, PCLM president RL
Francis alleged that "Christian missionary NGOs are indulging in
corruption, casteism and favouritism", and that Church organisations do
not submit any account of the crores of rupees received as
grants-in-aid. Mr Francis said that Christian schools, colleges,
hospitals and other bodies earned huge profits in the name of serving
the community, but the church leadership refused to provide accounts of
the same either to the community or to the government. Unlike secular
Hindus, Mr Francis is not seeking Government takeover of these rich
bodies, but wants the UPA regime to press Church organisations to spend
at least 50 per cent of their profits and incomes on uplifting poor and
downtrodden Christians. This raises legitimate questions about the
activities for which funds are received and their actual utilisation.
Scorning the Church demand to include Dalit Christians in the Scheduled
Caste list, Mr Francis countered: "On the one hand, the Church demands
reservation for Dalit Christians from the government while on the
other, it opposes and refuses to provide them reservation in the Church
structure. The Poor Christian Liberation Movement wants that the Prime
Minister, instead of giving Dalit Christians the lollipop of including
them in the Scheduled Caste list, should instead set up a Dalit
Christian Development Board for undertaking concerted social and
economic development of Dalit Christians."
There is some merit in this view. According to the 1991 census, there
were 19.65 million Christians in India (10.7 million in South India and
3.6 million in the North-east). Of the 3.2 million Christians in Tamil
Nadu, Dalits constitute nearly 65%. Now, as Vigil public forum
legitimately asks, if conversion entails empowerment and Dalits and
tribals comprise such a high percentage of the Christian population,
what kind of power-sharing equation has been established in the Church
hierarchy between priests of the erstwhile upper castes and erstwhile
Dalits?
And shouldn’t Dalits cease to perceive themselves in terms of caste
after becoming Christians? Sadly, the truth is otherwise. Until 1991,
out of approximately 134 Catholic Bishops in the country (14 in Tamil
Nadu alone), there was no Dalit or tribal until the ordaining of Bishop
Ezra Sargunam, a Dalit. Barring the States of Goa and Kerala, Dalits
and tribals comprise a major percentage of Christians, yet they are
hardly visible at the level of Bishops, Vicars-General, priests,
Directors, Professors in seminaries, and surgeons and heads of
departments in Christian hospitals and medical colleges.
Even Archbishop George Zus, a high ranking member of the Vatican
Hierarchy, commented adversely on this situation while addressing the
Catholic Bishops’ Council in Pune, in December 1991. Dalit Christians,
he said, "make 65 per cent" of the ten million Christians in the South,
but less than four per cent 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.
Secular oppressors of gentle souls like the Kanchi Shankaracharya will,
of course, ignore the fact that while Hindu society has elevated Dalits
to high status in all walks of life, including the Presidentship of the
Republic, the faiths that lured them away from the Hindu fold in the
name of equality and social justice have left them seething with
discontent. Vestiges of the despicable practice of untouchability are
routinely thrown in the face of the Hindu community, but little respect
is shown to dharamacharyas who devote their lives to eradicating it. On
the contrary, they become vulnerable to persecution.
Of course, secular fundamentalists do not dare probe how untouchability
which has no sanction in dharma arose in Hindu society. Like the slave
trade, it appears to be the creation of a particular socio-political
historical situation. In any case, untouchability is not the only form
of discrimination suffered by Christian Dalits. To this day, there are
hardly any inter-caste marriages among Christians of the upper castes
and Dalit converts, though such marriages are common in Hindu society
and no longer attract attention. Yet even today, upper caste Christians
will cringe at the thought of accepting the holy water from a Dalit
Christian priest, and many churches and cemeteries have even erected
walls to keep the dust of the upper caste laity safely distant from the
dust of Dalits. Separatism has thus been extended to Mother Nature
(earth) and Eternity itself, as Christians are supposed to be admitted
to Heaven or Hell at death.
