Bangalore (AsiaNews) Jobs and training are needed to improve the lives of Dalit Christians, this according to a seminar organised by the Dalit Christian Federation that drew more than 500 participants from the city of Bangalore and surrounding rural areas.
V.V. Augustine, a member of the National Minorities Commission, said in the inaugural session on November 14 that "education is an important means to improve the status of downtrodden Christians. Our educational institutions must give top priority to Dalit Christians and financially support them in higher education so that they can join the public service. Dalits should strive to rise in all fields."
"Seventy per cent of Christians in India are poor; they have no proper employment and shelter. Most of them are labourers doing menial jobs in the fish industry and on agricultural farms," he said. And one Christian in two lives in southern India.
Mr Augustine urged politicians to help these masses, warning them that "[i]f you fail in this, you are committing a crime".
C. Narayanaswamy, a former Member of Parliament and senior leader of the Janata Dal Party, said that his party tried to improve the situation of Dalit Christians, especially when its leader Deve Gowda was Prime Minister; unfortunately, the draft legislation he presented to parliament did "not see the light of the day because the government lost power".
Speaking to AsiaNews, John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union, said that the "Christian Dalit struggle is more than half a century old since the presidential order of 1950 robbed them of their rights after 3,000 years of caste tyranny".
"We have fought," he noted, "and often lost this battle in court, [but it] continues at the Supreme Court level, the next hearing is on November 28. Before the court, are civil society groups, Catholics and Protestants, and opposing them are men from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh."
"The battle also continues in parliament and state legislatures," and "internationally," he stressed.
"I have personally raised it in the UN, the US Congress, the European Union, and in Durban's International Congress on Racial Discrimination".
"Similarly, we raise the matter in the Church too. While some Protestant churches are entirely Dalit and their bishops and hierarchy are Dalit too, other Churches have different racial and cultural roots," he explained.
"The situation in the Catholic Church is more complex," he said. "Dalits are an integral part of the Latin Church, and there are Dalit pockets in the Malankara Church as well. Inside the Church, there are two Dalit archbishops, and maybe a dozen other bishops, out a total of about 180 bishops in 149 dioceses. [But] we do not have precise data about religious and diocesan clergy and seminarians."
Above all, Dayal agrees with Augustine on the importance of education.
"I see no reason why the church cannot help Dalits to the extent it canin employment in institutions, scholarships and preferential admission to schools with special hostels where necessary, micro financing to help Dalits in farming and entrepreneurship."