Author: Anil Nayyar
Publication: News Today
Date: November 20, 2003
URL: http://newstodaynet.com/guest/2011gu1.htm
Pope John Paul's recent fulminations
against 'discriminations' in Hindu Indian society should not come as a
major surprise to anyone who knows the ways of the man who sits in the
distant Vatican.
It is almost a predictable charade
from him. It is equally predictable that the 'secular' press in our land
should dutifully carry the same in all earnestness.
Ever since he targetted India as
a fertile land for 'rich harvest', the Pope and his phalanx have found
something to criticise in India. Sometimes it is riots. Sometimes it is
about the laws against conversions. And now it is about casteism.
As always, the Pope has been wrong
about India.
The learned Pope has spoken as if
casteism is a phenomenon of the Hindus. But as anyone who has interacted
with Christians, here in India or elsewhere, will bear out that casteism,
which is another form of discrimination, is alive and kicking (literally)
among them (Christians).
But the Pope does not talk about
that.
Perhaps, he is not aware of that,
or not ready to be enlightened. But those wanting remove the wool from
their eyes have to listen to some of the 'Dalit Christians' here and elsewhere.
Just sample this letter in a 'Dalit Christian website: 'Dear Christian
Followers, I am a Dalit, and I Studied in Christian Schools. I too become
a Christian as my teachers forced me to believe Christianity. They explained
that Jesus is the only God. They told me to come for the new life as God
is coming to the world on year 2000. As I was a Christian I know their
attitudes well. They want to convert more Christians. To that they chosen
all the public places. Some times they criticize rival religion in the
streets, which made a big controversy in India. I believe that they disturbed
others in public places. They forced others to follow them. They lied in
the streets that they become very rich and popular because of Jesus. These
events made me to embrace the Hinduism .... Christianity is a Business
in India. They converted more and more. Why? What is the need of Conversion?
Why they should interfere in some other life?'
That was one Vivek Kannan explaining
about his predicaments after conversions.
But before the Pope or anybody else
start saying that casteism is a legacy of Hindus in India, read this from
an American in the same website: 'My wife Mariani and I began a Center
for Interfaith Encounter (CIE) in St. Cloud, MN, in January 2000. We care
deeply about all the oppressed of the earth whatever their religion, ethnic
group, color or nationality. Our website: www.geocities.com/mmnazareth
In the part of the US where we live, as Christians of color we have sometimes
felt that we are dalits ourselves. We have sensed that white Christians
in this corner of Central Minnesota, where non-Catholic Christians are
approx. 35%, and where non-Christians form a little over 5% of the total
population, Christians of color enjoy an identity that is, in some sense,
not dissimilar to that of Dalit Christians.
'We became US citizens in late 1999,
but for some white (North) Americans it is the color of our skins that
defines who we are, namely, aliens who are in some sense religiously inferior
to them. Who ever said that caste is the curse of Indian society alone?
Casteism is a species of racism. Or maybe racism is a form of casteism
experienced in First World societies. Indeed, to judge from our frequent
experience even in religious spheres in the US of A, racism is another
name for casteism of the civilized. 'Touche! If still the Pope and those
from India to whom the pontiff had spoken are not convinced, and believe
that Christianity is a panacea to Dalits, there are empirical studies by
sociologists prove that the underprivileged status of the Dalit Christians
remains the same. (The Plight of Christian Dalits: A South Indian Case
Study (Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 1997); JOSE KANANAIKIL, Scheduled
Caste Converts and Social Disabilities: A Survey of Tamil Nadu (New Delhi:
Indian Social Institute, 1990).
The research by Kananaikil shows
that for many, even where there is a religious community which the new
convert has joined, this does not automatically mean that the new convert
is accepted into the new community as a full-fledged member.
In Kananaikil's opinion, 'social
prejudices die hard even in the holy places of churches and pagodas where
a Dalit convert is called a neo-Christian or neo-Buddhist'.
Godwin Shiri, in his study points
out that the Dalit women are the dalit among the Dalits. 'They are being
discriminated against 'within' and 'without' society. A deeply rooted male-domination
ideology, less acknowledged and practised often, is making the lives of
Christian Dalit women more miserable than that of their men, within the
community as well as in the society at large.'
These words are not being made by
'others'. These are from voices which are 'secular' and 'non-Hindu'.
The Pope may not know this. For,
he may be thinking about the rich harvest that he had so eloquently talked
about. But what of our secular media? Should they also remain steadfastly
blinkered? Time is ripe for them to convert to reality, that is.
