Bangalore: Prof. Saral Chatterji, Director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, New Delhi (CISRS) and a noted social scientist, has come out with the opinion that Dalits along with Tribals are India’s indigenous people whose very existence is being denied by the ruling Aryan upper castes.
The Untouchables (Dalits) are also a distinct nationality along with Tribals, he says in a lengthy paper on the “Social and Theological thinking of the CISRS”, which is the country’s foremost research organisation of the Protestant church. Prof. Chatterji is not only one of the foremost scholars among the Christian community but he gets some credit for pushing the upper caste-dominated church towards Dalits and Tribals. He also gets some credit for taking up the question of neglected Dalit Christians, oppressed by the upper caste Syrian, Goan, Mangalorean and other Christians. So, his categorical statement that Dalits also are India’s indigenous people is expected to open the eyes of the world and particularly the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Bangalore meet: Though the WCC has already recognised this historical fact, the church within India is yet to take up the issue seriously. The two-day All-India Conference of the Indigenous Peoples of India held here on Dec. 24 and 25 1993 with V.T. Rajshekar, Editor of Dalit Voice, in the chair declared that “Dalits and Tribals as well as Backward Castes are India’s indigenous”. (DV Jan. 16, 94 р.6).
Rev. Bob Scott of WCC’s Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) in a letter to our Editor had communicated the WCC decision to recognise Dalits as India’s Indigenous people along with Tribals and also assured the WCC support to Dalit struggle for self-determination (DV June 1, 1992 р.3).
WCC failure: Our April 16, 1992 Editorial spoke about the “Aryan rulers suppressing truth about the existence of indigenous peoples in India”.
Though it is over two years since the WCC came out with this categorical declaration supporting the Dalit struggle for self-determination nothing much has been done to implement its decision. The WCC helped set up a Dalit Solidarity Programme (DSP) headed by a Dalit Advocate, Bhagwan Das of Delhi, but except holding some meetings nothing concrete has been done. What is badly needed is the “education” of Dalits on the thoughts of Babasaheb Ambedkar and this has to be published in all regional languages. Dalits should be made to know the Truth so that they could free themselves from their slavery. Saral Chatterji must force the WCC to do this job and DV is ready to take up this job.
Prof. Saral’s 56-page scholarly thesis in the Religion and Society journal (March-June 1993) should, there-fore, remind the WCC and other world church organisations about its obligations in India to help restore the losing hold of the church in India.
Words of gold: The services done by the church and the church leaders can be written only in words of gold. This is what DV had said several times. Not only they did so much to liberate the Dalits and Tribals, they even gave the upper caste Aryans the idea to fight the British rulers who also happened to be Christians. The very concept of “nationalism” was put into the empty heads of upper castes by church leaders, and Christians actually became the founders of nationalist movement in India. Such is the service rendered by the church.
Syrian theology: But all this was before the “independence” (1947) After the foreign missionaries left, the upper caste church men with their “Syrian theology” came closer to upper caste rulers and converted the church into a business thereby alienating their own Dalit Christians and Tribals who formed over 90% of the country’s Christian population.
The ruling upper castes (Aryans) are not only denying the existence of the indigenous population, as Prol. Saral said, but they are re-writing the Indian history itself to say that “India is the homeland of Aryans who gave civilisation to the world”.
Arun Shourie attack: The RSS, the country’s premier Hindu nazi organisation, held its executive meeting at Jaipur on July 5 and asked the govt. to stop flow of foreign (read Christian) fund into Indian Christians (Times of India July 6, 1994). The Punjabi Brahmin, Arun Shourie, a Hindu nazi journalist, has been spit-ting fire at Christians (New Leader July 15: “Khushwant Singh on Arun Shourie diatribe against missionaries”). All over India the church is under attack by the Hindu nazis but our upper caste churchmen continue to be happy in the company of the very upper caste enemies of church. If this is not racial affinity what else is it?
That is why we had given a call to the Dalit Christians and Tribals to kick out the upper caste church men from the church (DV edit. Feb. 16, 1994)
