AHMEDABAD, India — On March 20th, hundreds of people gathered in Ahmedabad to demonstrate for the rights of minorities, especially women and Christians. “Enough is enough,” one protester chanted. “Stop the violence on women, minorities,” another said. Among demonstrators were the Dalits, a persecuted group that transcends all major religions, Hindus, Christians and Muslim.
Much has been done to relieve the plight of Dalits, once known as untouchables, in the 67 years since India’s Independence. As part of an effort to undo centuries of discrimination against this beleaguered people, legislation in the 1950s afforded Dalits government affirmative-action benefits in housing, education and employment. Dalits in the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist faiths have risen in standing and representation, but for close to seventeen million Indians — Muslims and Christians — it’s a different story.
“Whatever governmental aid Dalits are eligible for, I lose it just because I am Christian,” said Joshua Samuel. He is one of a select group of Dalit Christians who have made it to university without applying for reservations. The son of a pastor, he grew up in the spacious church houses of Chennai. His parents rose above their Dalit status through the Christian conversion of their descendants and were among the first Dalits to enter the education sphere; his mother was the first dark skin Dalit woman in her university math class. In the classroom, he witnessed legislative exclusion firsthand. He was the only Christian Dalit in his engineering class, where 90 percent of his fellow students were Brahman. “My classmates and my teachers would look at me as if I didn’t look good enough to be a good student.”
Christians gather on Sunday morning at the Church of North India in Ahmedabad. Photo by Rachel Lowry.
While national leaders have directed their attention to minimizing social hostilities against Christians in light of a rising Hindu nationalist party, activists and reformers have detected a lingering problem with increasing implications in India: government restrictions on religious minorities. This year, a Pew Research Center found that among the world’s 25 most populous countries, India was the 11th highest in government restrictions on religion in 2013. The report criticized legislation for favoring religious groups with funding and education provisions. That was four years before the Center for Public Interest Litigation filed a petition challenging the 1950s legislation. The hearing was deferred for the 19th time. Reports of protests against government inaction have snowballed across India these past few years. On March, 20th, hundreds of people gathered in Ahmedabad to demonstrate for the rights of Christians. Posters on the stage read, “Enough is enough.”
India’s affirmative action issue has had ripple effects across the world, prompting scrutiny from global organizations and authority figures. Dalits have sent open petitions requesting aid from religious leaders like the Pope. In 2001, the United Nations (UN) hosted a global conference addressing minority issues. The Dalits made an international splash, with a strong argument that the plight of millions of Indians is and has always been an international issue that if not prevented, can lead to massive systematic human rights problems. Last March, a group of Dalits joined together near the U.S. Capitol building to petition the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution proposed by Congresswomen Eleanor Homes Norton (D-DC) last March that calls on the U.S. government to address the problem of untouchability in India.
Samuel’s story was one of many that brought Dalits to a rally in Ahmedabad last month. The status on Samuel’s certificate reads, “Adi Dravida,” which indicates that he is a native of Dravida land, or southern India, denoting that he is a Dalit. But when it comes to actual categorization, he is not afforded college admissions, scholarships, or unemployment help available to other Dalits.
Legislation perpetuates social stigma, Samuel said. “Being a Christian helps you to hide your identity, but then even after I identify myself as a Christian, there is always the next question, ‘Where are you from?’ So, ok, fine, here it comes.” Once they know you’re a Dalit, their interactions change. “I don’t know if I would have access into their homes, to their families, or if they would accept me.”
Rev. Robinson Christian (pictured with his wife) is the pastor at the Church of North India in Ahmedabad. His family has been Christian for five generations. Photo by Rachel Lowry.
Christianity in India doesn’t acknowledge the caste system, so Christians don’t consider any of their fellow believers as Dalits. “We don’t discriminate,” said Reverend Anita Khristy, a minister at the Church of North India (CNI). “We just see all Christians as all equal in the eyes of God.” But for former Dalit members of the Indian Christian community, the question of caste remains taboo. “There are bitter struggles within these communities,” said Kanika Singh, a research scholar in history. “Even though they might not doctrinally approve of caste system, they all have the caste system now. They will not marry somebody of another caste. And that’s a reality.”
The caste system, which historically divided Hindu society into hierarchical castes, was outlawed in the Indian constitution in 1950. As a form of affirmative action, India’s Reservation System offers reserved seats, or reservations, in the public sector for Scheduled Castes, or Dalits. In response to political pressure, Sikhs were added in 1956, and Buddhists in 1990. By 2000, India’s 200 million Dalits had claim more than 22 percent of all central and state government jobs in legislatures, state assemblies and Parliament — up from 17.24 percent in 1959, according to a study published on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s website. Between 1983 and 2000, school enrollment rates for Dalits climbed from nearly 45 percent to just over 63 percent, according to Dalit scholars Sonalde Desai and Veena Kulkarni who wrote “Changing Educational Inequalities in India in the Context of Affirmative Action.” But not for Christians and Muslims Dalits. With no access to reservations, the number of Christian Dalits attending university has plateaued.
It’s not just a question of educational benefits. If assaulted, Christian Dalits lack the constitutional protection — under the Untouchability Offences Act of 1979, the Civil Rights Act of 1955 or the Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 — entitled to those who belong to Scheduled Castes.
Most constitutional scholars argue that the freedom of religion is directly contradicted by this clause. “It’s an affirmative action program that smuggles in religious discrimination through the back door,” said Lee.
Some lawmakers claim that Dalits don’t need reservation help, as they can rely on Christian institutions, which boasts a majority of higher education schools. But Dalits argue that within the Christian community, hierarchy still exists. Dalits are allowed into Christian institutions with great caution, Samuel said. “Whether the institutions were eager to allow Dalits access is a different question. It would affect their reputation as an institution.”
Taking this affirmative action can become its own kind of stigma, said Lee. “There are all kinds of nasty terms for quota kids in school,” said Lee. “People who get the exemption are often called up by school administration and called out in class. It becomes clear who is getting these benefits and who isn’t.” And yet, that encompasses a small minority. “Getting into school, and being the first generation to do that, it is incredibly empowering.”
Many mask their unfavorable status as “crypto-Christians” and “crypto-Muslims” — those who are nominally Hindu, and only privately consider themselves to be Christian or Muslim — to receive the benefits of reservation, Lee said. His work documents how large numbers of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh who, before 1950, had Muslim names and practiced an autonomous Dalit religion that understood itself to be outside Hinduism, changed their own and their children’s names to appear Hindu and in order to avail themselves of crucial school fee exemptions and scholarships after the 1950 law.
When the children were 5 or 6, the school teacher would ask their parents to pay the school fees at registration. They couldn’t afford it, but if their names weren’t Christian or Muslim, they could. “Right on the spot at registration, they gave their child a new Hindu name.” Lee said. “I have story after story of people who did that. The exemption they received was an open door to education and so many people wanted their kids in.”
Others conceal and deny their Christianity to retain benefits. “We don’t say that we are Christians, because then you don’t get a scholarship,” a woman in the theatre group CARDS told Elze Sietzema-Riemer, who conducted a study for the Mission Department in 2009. “In school we say we are from the Scheduled Caste. Like that, we are getting a scholarship for our study.”
Women lead the congregation in traditional praise songs at the Church of North India in Ahmedabad. Photo by Rachel Lowry.
A growing number of academics say this legislative exclusion is more than an oversight. “There are powerful forces at work keeping the law from changing,” said Lee, adding that Modi’s regime is giving a tacit green light to Hindu majoritarianism of all sorts, including the church burnings.
Kapil Bhardwaj is a volunteer at the Aam Admi Party (AAP), which won, in February, the elections in Delhi, a state where the BJP had been in power for more than fifteen years. Since then, the AAP has Become a bugging challenger for Modi’s BJP. He says that political parties like the BJP “have always played the caste and the religion card and they’ve always flared emotion based on their electoral benefits. So BJP has tried to sideline other minorities.” Christians in India are not yet convinced that the AAP will manage to change the situation of religious minorities in India. “I am still waiting, I am still waiting,” Bishop Thomas McWan during a protest in Ahmedabad, “because still very recently they have been elected.”
Religious exclusion is largely instigated by the Hindu nationalist movement, which is rooted in the ideology that religions that are not native to India — namely, Islam and Christianity — do not belong. Members of the BJP are vocal about their objections of the growth of these religious minorities. “We firmly believe that converting people from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam is a political weapon,” said Tarun Vijay, a BJP Member of Parliament of the Rajya Sabha, or the Upper House. He said that those in the low castes are lured to convert. “They tell them that the Hindu Gods are false and theirs is better, and then they ask for reservations.”
Anil Kumar Mittal, coordinator of Delhi’s state bureau for the BJP, doesn’t think Modi’s party discriminate against any religion. “Minorities like Christians and Muslims are much more safe and much more comfortable in India than other countries,” he said. “We have no opposition for any religion of any minority.”
Without political power or majority presence, Dalit Christians lack the standing to instigate change. Numerous organizations are lobbying the government to change the legislation so this exclusionary clause will be removed. Human rights organizations have also spoken out. The Dalit Freedom Network works at a grassroots level to provide education and healthcare to Dalits. In 2013, the International Dalit Solidarity Network demanded legislative changes at a minority forum and last year, a Human rights Commission petitioned the Human Rights Watch for better legislation and stronger human rights commissions.
“How is it that a Dalit Hindu, Sikh or a Buddhist is eligible for reservation but not a Dalit Christian or Muslim?” said Prashant Bhushan, the litigation lawyer who took on a Supreme Court case pro bono on behalf of Christian Dalits, at a hearing. “Is this not discrimination on the basis of religion which is prohibited under the Constitution?”
Government commissions have been set up by the government to look into these issues and advise the government on what to do. Last year, the National Commission for Minorities released a study that demanded an extension of reservation to Muslim and Christian Dalits, finding the current status quo a violation of the constitutional freedom of religion. That’s seven years after the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches called on the Union Cabinet to make the legislative changes. In its report, the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, estimated that this difference of treatment between religions happened “in many states,” and that it “clearly amounts to religious-based discrimination.” Despite their repeated efforts, little has been done. “The government has failed to act on the advice of its own commissions,” Lee said.
But despite the grim prospects, many Dalit Christians have risen beyond their circumstance. Reverend Robinson Christian says that many Dalits in his parish in Ahmedabad have moved beyond the limitations of their socioeconomic status. “Members at this church don’t go for reservations,” he said.
“In one sense I was probably more privileged than other dalits would be,” Samuel told us, in the lobby of a classically-inspired, columned, gothic revival at the edge of Columbia University campus — the epicenter of academia in the city. He is currently a student at the Union Theological Seminary, where he is studying casteism in India. He says he hopes to pass along the key tradition to his family: education.
Ironically, he says the states are a different story. “I feel very impoverished here,” he laughs. His one-room apartment on the fifth floor at Hastings overlooks an austere courtyard of the Union Theological Seminary. When his friends from his diocese visited him, he said, they were shocked at the downgrade. “People assume that since I’m from India, I grew up in poverty, but no. I had my own house, I had a care, and here, I’m starting from scratch.”