Defying some perceptions of widening divisions between Christians and Muslims, hundreds of Muslims joined a sit-in dharna in New Delhi on 3 March 2007 organized by Christian groups fighting against discrimination meted out to Dalits.
“Give us equal rights,” shouted the protesters including senior church leaders and Muslim activists at the dharna demanding an end to the discrimination against Christian and Muslim Dalits.
The meeting was organized by the ecumenical National United Christian Forum for Human Rights along with the National Council of Churches in India, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and the Evangelical Fellowship of India. “The governments have been deaf and blind to our cries. Let us pray to God that they get sight and hearing to see our suffering,” said Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi, chairperson of the ecumenical forum, as Muslim women with their faces covered with veils listened to him along with Catholic nuns.
The district authorities also urged the Government to ask the endowment commission to intervene as no rituals had been performed in the shrine for the last three days. “Once rituals are conducted smoothly, normalcy will easily be restored in the locality,” said a senior officer.
On 1 March 2007, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination sharply criticised the Union Government for its failure to prevent discrimination based on caste. In a report, the committee deplored widespread abuse perpetrated against Dalits. It found that more than 165 million Dalits continue to face segregation in housing, schools, and access to public services in the world’s second most populous nation.
Christian groups have long campaigned for equal rights for Christian Dalits – who account for two thirds of India’s 26 million Christians – for more than 50 years since the Government introduced law aimed at affirmative action for Hindu Dalits in 1950.
‘Dalit’ (meaning “trampled upon” in Sanskrit) refers to low castes treated as untouchables under the ongoing caste system in India which leaves them consigned to degrading, de-humanising menial jobs as well as scavenging. With the Scheduled Caste [official name for Dalits] Act of 1950, Hindu Dalits became entitled to free education and certain government jobs reserved for them to improve their social status. Later, these benefits were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and Buddhist Dalits in 1990.
“What secularism is there in this country? Are we not citizens of this country?” challenged Kamal Ashraf, coordinator of the Dalit Muslim Liberation Movement, as he led hundreds of his followers in protest at the meeting organized by the Christian groups. “Caste is a social reality and a Dalit is a Dalit whether he is a Christian or a Muslim.”
Ashraf said, “Both of us [Christians and Muslims] are in the same boat. We have to stand together and fight for justice.” The groups that oppose extension of equal rights to Christian and Muslim Dalits, he asserted, are part of a Hindu fundamentalist lobby that treats Christianity and Islam as “foreign religions”.
(Source: Ecumenical News International)
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