Dalits - Real Issues & Discussion

[dhu]

[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/UPA-govt-hands-out-a-raw-deal-to-dalits-and-adivasis/articleshow/5601056.cms"]UPA govt hands out a raw deal to dalits and adivasis[/url]



UPA is diverting these funds to the Islamics..

[Bharatvarsh2]

The Indian media has made this missionary induced term "adivasis" the norm so much so that even supposed Hindu activists use it.



It is a very misleading term and translates to "aboriginal" in English which is a big lie in the Indian context.



Several of these tribes like the Ahoms & others were rather late entrants into India as Elst documents and cannot by any stretch of the imagination be designated as the original inhabitants.



After 5000 years of mixing there are no "aboriginals" in India anymore except on the Andaman islands.



The traditional Hindu terms for tribals were vanavasis or girijans.

[Capt M Kumar]

<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':o' /> As more dalit parents insist on imparting English to their children, the market will do the rest. At some point, the supply of English teachers is bound to meet demand, helping educators like Kamal Kumar offer English-medium education. However, two questions remain unanswered. One is the colonial taint of English. The lone foreigner at the temple event, Sussex university professor Marcus Wood, offers an answer. The British empire was responsible for the standardization of English, which paved the way for its emergence as a global language

, "but now English does not belong to the English anymore". The dalits' quest for English is their attempt to find a voice. It has all the ingredients of an epic struggle. This goddess may not join the Hindu pantheon of 330 million but it could usher in an era of cultural rejuvenation for dalits. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/artic...908486.cms

[Capt M Kumar]

Call it the Babri verdict fallout: a group of Dalit rights activists has decided to approach the government demanding that Buddha and Jain viharas that have been converted to Hindu temples should be returned to the original owners.



The group, made up of Ambedkar followers, academics, advocates and activists, has also decided to approach the Supreme Court with the demand. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101009/js...037587.jsp

[Husky]

^ Such assertions are going to open up a can of worms for the claimants alone (not to mention for many *actual* Buddhists across Asia). All kinds of unpleasantness...

But maybe the Ambedkarites should - for a change - ignore the script given them by their christian puppeteers, and ask islam to return the Buddhist and Jain temples/sites it took. Islam's *actually* stolen and broken a great many, I hear from real Buddhists (a.o.t. the neo- kind that has hijacked the label). Moreover muslims don't appear to have built any Buddhist temples in India, which is in contrast to Hindus who apparently built not a few of the oldest Buddhist temples in India.





Anyway, two items from the chindu's "Frontline"



1. www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2804/stories/20110225280404200.htm

via christianaggression.org/item_display.php ?type=ARTICLES&id=1298391772

'Eppadium' (Anyhow), the most recent novel of Fr Mark Stephen

Feb 2011

[...]

[color="#800080"](The earlier novel Yaathirai*)[/color] highlighted the paramount need for a people's movement to end the atrocities against Dalit Christians, such as denial of their rights in the administration of the church and in the conduct of festivals, and to a place in the cemetery to bury their dead.

[...]

[color="#800080"](his most recent novel, Eppadium)[/color] deals with the unpleasant situation prevailing in Vembar, a coastal village in Tuticorin district, where Christian populations belonging to Nadar, Paravar and Dalit castes run their own schools and administer separate parishes. Without hypocrisy, the author takes the bull by the horns. He narrates the insults heaped on Dalit Christians in the village through the denial of any role in the parish administration.

[...]

The title "yaathirai" is stolen from Tamizh Hindu religious word - equivalent of Skt yatra.





2. www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2804/stories/20110225280403800.htm

via christianaggression.org/item_display.php ?type=ARTICLES&id=1298391867

Volume 28 - Issue 04 :: Feb. 12-25, 2011

SOCIAL ISSUES



Caste divide

S. DORAIRAJ



Tensions run high within the Christian community in Thachur village, and the government has adopted a hands-off approach for now.





[color="#800080"][photo caption][/color] The Roman Catholic church at Thachur village.



THE wrinkles on S. Royappan's face are a result of advancing age, but the ridges and furrows in them tell a story of humiliation of this Dalit Christian, as also others like him. Royappan, 82, was a bonded labourer, or padiyaal, in Thachur village in Tamil Nadu's Kancheepuram district, but it is the ‘bond' with the Roman Catholic church in the village that remains vivid in his memory.



The 175-year-old Arockiya Matha* (Our Lady of Health) church has a chequered history, and the most recent additions to it may have the potential to be a turning point for Dalit Christians in the village. The events were the burials of two Dalit Christians in the cemetery attached to the church and the opposition to them by upper-caste Reddiar Christians, who claim the cemetery is only for their dead. The Reddiars' behaviour failed to unnerve Royappan, though; he had seen worse.

[color="#800080"](Arogya Maata. Note how christianism blasts Samskritam when in Hindu hands, but uses it for propagating its own religion all the time. Makes it clear that christianism hates *Hindus* having Samskritam, but wants it for itself.)[/color]



An eerie silence pervades Thachur, and most of the men of Reddiar families stayed away from the village for several days fearing police action. The Dalits in the village had overcome stiff resistance from the Reddiars and asserted their right twice in January when they buried the brother of a Dalit priest and a Dalit farm worker in the cemetery. The priest's brother, Velankanni, had died of natural causes on January 22, but the farm worker, Rajendran, was murdered; his body was retrieved from the lake in the village on January 24.





[color="#800080"][photo caption:][/color] THE CEMETERY IN the church compound. All along, "upper-caste" Christians have resisted Dalit Christians' attempts to bury their dead here.



The full import of the development in Thachur, a predominantly Christian village around 80 km from Chennai, can be understood only by delving into the past.



Though the church building was constructed in 1922, the village is considered to be one of the oldest parishes in the State because the first Christians here arrived in 1836. The parish was then under the Pondicherry-Cuddalore diocese. In 1969, it came under the Madras-Mylapore diocese and moved to the Chengalpattu diocese created in 2002.



The population comprises Reddiars, who migrated from Andhra Pradesh, and Dalits, including Adi Dravidars and Arunthathiars. Though almost all of them are Christian converts, a sharp division existed right from the beginning on the basis of socio-economic disparity. Varna vyavastha (caste hierarchy), which is deeply rooted in Hinduism, has been absorbed by the converts and this has deepened the hiatus further.



Fr John Suresh, a priest who is also the director of the Chengalpattu Rural Development Society, said the cross-shaped church enabled the upper-caste Christians to occupy the centre, while the sides were earmarked for the Adi Dravidars and the Arunthathiars. The administration of the parish was under the control of a team of dharmakartas (trustees) belonging to the Reddiar caste. The Dalits were denied a role even in the day-to-day affairs of the church, not to speak of its administration. They could not assume the role of readers or lectors at Mass. They challenged this decades-old discrimination in the 1990s. The protracted legal battle resulted in the closure of the church for over 10 years until a path-breaking tripartite agreement was reached in November 2006.



But caste discrimination even in death continues in Thachur. The village has three cemeteries, one for each group. The one inside the church complex is claimed by the Reddiars, while the other two groups have theirs on the outskirts of the village.





[color="#800080"][photo caption:][/color] The site in the cemetery where Velankanni, brother of a Dalit priest, was buried overcoming "upper-caste" opposition.



The Dalits' struggle drew support from some political parties, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and organisations such as the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), the Dalit Human Rights Centre, and the Chengalpattu Rural Development Society, which work for the welfare of oppressed people.



According to Bharathi Anna, convener of the Kancheepuram district unit of the TNUEF, even today the vast stretches of fertile land on the Palar river bed belong to the Reddiars. The majority of the Dalits work in these fields. A few of them are marginal farmers and a minuscule number have government jobs. Though a sizable number of upper-caste Christians have migrated to urban areas, including Chennai, they continue to own land in the village.



Reddiars, Adi Dravidars and Arunthathiars reside in different localities in the village. Most of the Dalits continue to be farmhands though the padiyaal system has by and large vanished. A good number of them have become construction workers, while some Dalit youth have entered the portals of higher education.



[color="#0000FF"]However, the Reddiars have been reluctant to relax their grip over the administration of the church. Royappan and several other residents of the village narrated the treatment meted out to them and others. There was a time when the padiyaals were flogged with tamarind twigs or tied to the wheel of a moving bullock cart as punishment. The Dalits employed by Reddiars had to drink water and gruel poured into their cupped hands. Such practices continued in the feudal society for long.[/color]



With some parish priests initiating steps to democratise the administration of the church, besides striving for the economic independence of the oppressed people, Dalit Christians slowly started raising their voice against discriminatory practices, said Fr John Suresh. As a result, the priests incurred the wrath of the upper-caste Christians. Some of them were even assaulted, alleged Fr John Suresh.



In another incident at R.N. Kandigai village under the same diocese in 1995, a parish priest who was seen to be pro-Dalit was manhandled by upper-caste Christians with a view to hindering his priestly duties. The church was closed indefinitely by the Archdiocesan authorities.



Recalling the legal battle in the local courts, L. Yesumarian, director of the Chengalpattu-based Dalit Human Rights Centre, said upper-caste Christians had set the ball rolling in 1995 by filing a case against a change in the route of the procession of Mother Mary as part of the parish's feast celebrations. They said the car procession should take the “customary route”, that is, it should not pass through the Dalit localities.





[color="#800080"][photo caption:][/color] THE CEMETERY OF the Adi Dravidar (Dalit) Christians on the outskirts of the village.



The next case was filed by the same group a couple of years later, seeking the transfer of the then parish priest, Fr K.M. Joseph, a Malayalee, and the appointment of a priest who had knowledge of Tamil and Telugu. In turn, Fr Joseph filed a case seeking a direction that the parish priest would be the sole authority to administer the parish and to decide the mode of celebrations. In the same year, the Reddiars filed a defamation case against the Adi Dravidars. In 1999, the Adi Dravidars filed a case pleading for orders not to open the church until the suits in the courts between the parishioners were settled and decided.



When the legal battle was on, the Dalit Christians carried on different forms of agitation demanding a due share in the administration of the parish. They also called for steps to end the caste-based discrimination in the church and in the village. The control over the land belonging to the church also became a contentious issue.



Sustained struggles by the Dalits of Thachur resulted in the agreement of November 28, 2006, signed by representatives of Reddiars, Dalits and the diocese in the presence of officials of the Revenue Department.



The 12-point agreement laid down that all Christian groups in the parish should accept the authority of the bishop of Chengalpattu diocese and of the parish priest appointed by him as per Canon Law. The annual festival of the parish, it said, should be held with the involvement of all members of the parish under the direct supervision of the bishop. It also said all the groups should maintain unity to ensure that the car procession passed through all the habitations in the village.



The accord urged the parties concerned to abide by the diocese's decision on the issue pertaining to church land. All the places of worship and movable and immovable properties within the parish's jurisdiction should be brought under the administration of the diocese and the direct supervision of the bishop, it said. It also provided for the setting up of a parish council with elected representatives and for the appointment of pious groups.



Above all, all stakeholders agreed that acts of caste discrimination in the church or its administration would not be allowed. All the groups were advised to withdraw the cases pending before various courts. It was also agreed that the Sunday evening Mass would be in Telugu, while on other days it would be in Tamil.





[color="#800080"][photo caption:][/color] BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT [color="#800080"][photo caption:][/color] A ROAD-ROKO AGITATION by Dalit Christians in the village demanding the arrest of the killers of Rajendran, a Dalit farm worker.



Only a few of the provisions, such as the car procession being taken to all the areas in the village, were implemented without any major impediment, said residents. However, caste animosity continued to haunt Thachur. Particularly, the Dalits were not allowed to use the cemetery in the church complex to bury their dead. The Reddiars ended their dependence on the local parish priests to perform rituals by bringing Telugu-speaking priests from other dioceses.



The Dalits were biding their time to break this barrier; a couple of attempts they made earlier had failed. But Velankanni, they decided, would be buried inside the church complex. They faced stiff resistance from the Reddiars while conducting the funeral mass and burying the body. At one stage, the Reddiars even locked the gate of the church, Bharathi Anna said. He added that the incident occurred even as the CPI(M) MLA G. Latha and other leaders were consoling the relatives of the deceased.



Rajendran, the Dalit farm worker, assisted the family members of Velankanni in digging the grave. He was found murdered a couple of days later. The police initially filed a “man missing” case but later, on the basis of the post-mortem report, changed it to one of murder. Dalit Christians staged a road-roko protest in the village demanding the arrest of those involved. The police said they had arrested a few persons in the case.



Such acts of discrimination against Dalit Christians exist in several other villages, including M.N. Kandigai, R.N. Kandigai and K.K. Pudur under the Chengalpattu diocese, said Fr Yesumarian. According to him, in many villages dominated by Telugu-speaking upper-caste Christians, language has been used as camouflage to continue with the discrimination against Dalits.



“Though there are as many as 20 priests, 60 nuns and three bishops belonging to the Reddiar caste in Thachur, none of them cares to explain to their own caste members that they should not violate the Canon Law,” he said.



Arunthathiars in these villages are virtually caught in the crossfire between Adi Dravidars and upper-caste Christians. “One group has muscle power and the other has money power. We are powerless. We find no other course but to maintain equidistance in the given situation as we depend on the rich farmers in the Reddiar community,” lamented a resident of the Arunthathiar habitation in Thachur.



Reddiar Christians of Thachur deny all the allegations against them. They only want to protect their rights as a linguistic minority, a spokesman of the Reddiars said, adding that Dalits were being instigated by some priests belonging to the oppressed community.



Regarding the November 2006 agreement, he said, some Reddiars had signed it without the consent of others. Denying any caste-based discrimination against Dalits, he said the Reddiars would demand an independent probe into the recent untoward incidents in the village. Official sources say that the government wants to adopt a cautious approach to the sensitive issue. The district administration has taken steps to ensure law and order in the village. Though the government may intend to evolve a consensus among the contending groups of the same religion, it will not impose any remedy, as it may become counterproductive, say official sources.



Any attempt by any group or section of people to promote untouchability is highly condemnable, said Fr A. Vincent Chinnadurai, Chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Minorities. The commission would extend all assistance to restore normalcy in that village, he added.



The emergence of the Dalit Christian Movement and the Dalit Christian Liberation Movement and the support extended to them by secular and democratic forces have raised the hopes of Dalit Christians that they will win the relentless battle against caste-based discrimination in various denominations of Christianity, said activists of these movements.



Dalit Christians constitute more than 70 per cent of the Christian population in Tamil Nadu. Their sustained campaign, with the support of the secular and democratic forces, resulted in the 10-point programme charted by the Tamil Nadu Bishops' Council in 1990 for the integrated development of Dalit Catholics, they pointed out. After evaluating the implementation of the programme in 2003, it was further pruned for focussed action, they said.



However, the different forms of discrimination, such as the violence against Dalit Christians in Erayur in Villupuram district in March 2008, the attempts to preserve the dividing wall in the cemetery in Melapudur, the construction of churches with a design to maintain the caste hierarchy, as in Thachur and several other places, still continue, the activists pointed out. This underscores the fact that the struggle has to be intensified, they added.

3. https://apostlethomasindia.wordpress.com...raad-elst/

"The missionaries found that people were not willing to give up their caste by converting to Christianity, which implied breaking with a number of caste customs. The only way to convert people, was to convert entire caste groups and allow them to retain some of their caste identity.



Therefore, far from abolishing caste, the Church allowed caste distinctions to continue even within its own structure and functioning. Pope Gregory XV (1621-1623) formally sanctioned caste divisions in the Indian Church. This papal bull confirmed earlier decisions of the local Church hierarchy in 1599 and 1606.



It is therefore not true that the Church’s motivation in blackening the Brahmins had anything to do with a concern for equality. The Church was against equality in the first place, and even when equality became the irresistible fashion, the Church allowed caste inequality to continue wherever it considered it opportune to do so."

a] Casteism is rampant in christianism *because* christianism consciously inculturated on the phenomenon of the existence of strict endogamous communities within Hindu society. And as with all of christianism's inculturation, its appropriation of the same turned into a perversity: it cared only to preserve distinctions. So distinction and the blind need for it are all that remains of the memory of former identity after conversion of the endogamous groups.* And the very blind vehemence with which this segregation is being enforced has resulted in this excess of casteism in christianism.



And this is also why, unlike in Hindu society, there is nothing to end or even alleviate caste discrimination in christianism: because christianism specifically *insisted* on copying the meaningless form of the so-called "castes". I.e. christianism looked at Hindu society, read this to be a "caste system", then christianism inculturated on the Hindu societal situation as christianism had understood this to be, and thereby christianism ended up with an *actual* caste system in its own christian society of converts. (Oh the irony. Just desserts.) So, ultimately, all that resulted from christianism's inculturation in this case is casteism.





* E.g. of the senseless lingering of form/label devoid of meaning: can see this in how catholic christians in Goa, Mangalore and Maharasthra actually advertise for marriage suitors with the oxymoron "catholic brahmins". Nothing brahmin about them. But they merely kept the form and a growing insistence on labels and segregation. And developed a grand snobbishness too: considering they have no right to the term "brahmin" - having forfeited it long ago upon conversion out of Hindu religion - yet meaninglessly believe in their claim to it (as if it's a "genetic" marker instead), and believe in it so greatly indeed, that they use it to dismiss other catholic suitors. Truly, a caste system: based on birth.





b] I don't understand the "Dalit Christian Liberation Movement". Why such insistence on christianism - why such misdirected loyalty to that worthless evil religion - when casteism is moreover ingrained in it? If they are fighting casteism in christianism (with little success, it would seem), why not have stuck loyally to their ancestral Hindu religion and fought off any discrimination they encountered there? Hindu society has shown itself capable of change (when not stuck in a rut, and when not cornered). But christian society, not at all besieged, and with all - including stolen - advantages at its fingertips, is yet unchangeable.





Actually, documented casteism (discrimination based on birth) is innate to christianism and christian society: the real casteism can be seen vividly in Europe even just a few centuries back. E.g. pre-revolutionary France, on which there exists still a lot of literature (as opposed to mere projected dawaganda) about the Chosen Few factually oppressing the great many who slaved away - starving - for the former's comforts. And the revolutionaries knew that christianism - and the castes it had religiously created and maintained - was to blame. Note that in christian Europe's case, this was not propaganda against christianism: the rights of the few were gawd-ordained, and a birthright. And they abused it with impunity.** But even after the revolution, it was the more powerful of the 'Third Estate' [sorry, don't know the English translation] that took over the seat of power and privilege in France. Therefore communism - that pathetic wannabe imitation of the French Revolution - is not the answer to Indians' situation either.



** Even education and voting were not rights of all in christoEurope but were, for the longest time, the exclusive rights of the blue-blooded (and of a few of the extremely privileged among the moneyed). General access to these things came much later in Europe, in a post-christian setting (i.e. despite christianism): initially, even after serfs had finally evolved to "working classes", it was not their right yet. And one hardly needs to bring up the following on how 'egalitarian' the catholic papacy was until... almost yesterday:



http://freetruth.50webs.org/A7c.htm

"His Holiness, Pius XII, the [color="#0000FF"]best anti-democrat in the world[/color]," as he was in 1950 (!) proudly titled by Ecclesia, official organ of the Spanish Catholic Action in an attempt to pay him the greatest tribute a Catholic paper could pay, earlier in his career, as we have seen, had helped Hitler to come to power in Germany.