India’s Dalits suffer unrelentless oppression and violence
Commentary by Nick Gier | FāVS News
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
—Martin Luther King
Last month we enjoyed a visit from our Indian friend Johnson Roosevelt Petta. Most Christian Indians (28 million strong), avoiding everything Hindu, have biblical names, but Johnson’s family obviously had great affection for two American presidents. Johnson’s paternal grandfather was literate and read widely about world affairs. His admiration for Roosevelt is also seen in his insistence that his eldest granddaughter have the name Rosie.
Gandhi and the Dalits
I was amazed to learn that Johnson was a Dalit, now the politically correct name for “untouchable.” Mahatma Gandhi preferred to call them “Harijan” meaning “children of God.” Gandhi believed that “caste is a social evil, and that untouchability is a soul-destroying sin.” Johnson told me that many Dalits, who otherwise admire Gandhi greatly, consider Harijan condescending and off-putting.
In Gandhi’s ashrams everyone (including Gandhi’s once protesting wife) was expected to share in the dirty work that Dalits (200 million strong) still do in India’s caste bound towns and villages. In October 1995, I was on a train from Calcutta to Varanasi, and it was held up for hours because railway workers could not find any Dalits to remove a dead cow from the tracks. Only a Dalit may touch a dead body.
Ambedkar and India’s Constitution
The author of India’s Constitution was a Dalit named B. R. Ambedkar, who later converted to casteless Buddhism as a protest against that oppressive system. Despite incredible obstacles, he was the first Dalit to graduate from the University of Bombay. There, in 1912, he obtained a degree in economics and political science. Until his death in 1956 Ambedkar worked tirelessly for the rights of his Dalit sisters and brothers.
Ambedkar and other Dalit leaders were highly critical of Gandhi’s view that even though Dalits should have a full complement of rights, they should remain in their own hereditary positions. Gandhi scandalized many when wrote: “Why should my son not be a scavenger if I am one?”
Ambedkar made sure that the Indian Constitution contained strict probations against caste discrimination. Johnson’s father, who served in the air force and his paternal grandfather who worked in the postal service, were protected at work because of their government employment.
Decades of violence against Dalits
In the private sphere federal laws are flagrantly violated. The evil of caste exclusion is dramatically portrayed in a story that Johnson tells about his Dalit maternal grandfather. After he converted to Christianity his Hindu neighbors had an additional reason to hate and harass him. For many Hindus, leaving the faith is a grievous sin.
Another strike against the maternal grandfather was that he had saved enough money to buy a plot of farmland, a rare exception for Dalits. One day as he was taking his rice crop to market, he was ambushed by some Hindu miscreants. They beat him up and rolled his oxcart over the back of his thighs. The family shame was so great that, as a young boy, Johnson said that he was never told why “Grandpa walked so funny.”
In 2014 alone, there were 17,000 cases of violence against Dalits in the state of Bihar and only about 10% have come to trial. A 15-year-old Dalit goatherder named Sai Ram was burned alive after one of his goats strayed onto a high caste Hindu’s property. Dalit women are routinely gang raped, and Dalit families are frequently forced out of their homes on the slightest of pretenses.
Johnson’s segregated church
Since the arrival of British missionaries in the early 19th century, millions of Dalits converted to Christianity hoping to escape the caste system. Some converts were higher caste Hindus, and they naturally became leaders in the native churches. Tragically, they reintroduced caste discrimination in many congregations.
I had the opportunity to visit the church that Johnson attended in Hyderabad. A heavy dark curtain hung down the center and there were separate entrances and bathrooms for Dalit worshippers. Every Sunday the high-caste minister led “integrated” services.
Immigrant Dalits face discrimination
Dalits who have immigrated to the U.S. continue to face discrimination by their high caste compatriots. A 2018 survey of 1,200 individuals of South Asian descent found “that 26% said they had experienced a physical assault because of their caste, while 59% reported caste-based derogatory jokes or remarks directed at them.”
Despite the incredible obstacles many Dalits have faced, they have made progress in the professions. Johnson’s father became an attorney but now, because of an urgent inner calling, decided to pastor his own church in Hyderabad.
In 2002, I sponsored Johnson’s studies at the University of Denver where he won a dissertation prize for a thesis on Dalit pastoral theology. Johnson’s niece recently graduated in mechanical engineering, and she was offered a job in a prestigious Indian corporation. One of India’s top young chemists, now a postdoc at the University of Idaho, is a Dalit Christian.
Oppression is real not “woke”
These days those of us who talk of oppressors and the oppressed are ignorantly called “Marxists.” Karl Marx was correct to condemn the oppressive conditions of 19th century capitalism, but those who agree with him are not communists for acknowledging those horrendous working environments.
The grim facts of those Africans enslaved by Southern racists are not alleviated by, for example, Florida high school lesson plans that point out that most slaves learned skills such as carpentry, iron smithing and laundering. They also learned, living in miserable health and working conditions, to live in fear of beatings, police dogs and lynching.
As we prepare to celebrate Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 20, let us promote his principle that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Nick Gier of Moscow taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31 years. He is a long-time member of the Latah County Human Rights Task Force. Read his articles on civil rights at bit.ly/3vPiVD1. Email him at [email protected].
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
