Indian National Rally 4 Dalits

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CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE SUPPORTS
INDIAN NATIONAL RALLY IN SUPPORT OF
DALIT CHRISTIAN RIGHTS

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

HYDERABAD, INDIA (ANS) -- Christian Solidarity Worldwide partner, the All India Christian Council, will be holding a National Rally for Dalit Christian reservation in Hyderabad, India, on November 26.

Nearly 50,000 Dalit Christians from around India are expected to attend and leaders of all political parties and human rights groups have been invited to participate. The rally is to show support for the legal challenge to discrimination against Dalits who embrace Christianity or Islam. This discrimination is being challenged at India's Supreme Court by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, with the next hearing due to take place on November 28.

About 17 percent of India's population (around 180 million people) are Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables"), and around 60 percent of India's estimated 25 million Christians are Dalits.

Dalits have faced centuries of oppression at the hands of the upper castes. They perform the most menial and hazardous jobs in India, and many Dalit women are sold into prostitution. Many restaurants keep separate drinking vessels for Dalit use, and Dalits often live downstream of the higher castes, as they are considered a polluting influence. This segregation even extended to the relief camps set up in south-east India following the 2004 tsunami.

In 1950, in an effort to address some of the injustices faced by the Dalit community, the Government introduced an order which bestowed 'Scheduled Caste' status on Dalits.

As a result, Dalits have been given some benefits such as quotas of reserved places in government, in employment, education, housing and the distribution of agricultural land. This system is known as "reservation".

However, the 1950 order contained the proviso that if Dalits converted from Hinduism to another religion, they would lose their Scheduled Caste status.

The law has been altered once in 1956 to include Sikhs, and again in 1990 to include Buddhists, but Christian and Muslim Dalits are still denied equal rights even with other Dalits.

Although some have argued that Christianity does not involve a concept of caste, and that therefore Dalits who embrace Christianity should not be given the rights reserved for other Dalits, Christian leaders are insisting that the socio-economic status of Dalits does not automatically improve by their adopting a new religion.

Joseph D'souza, International President of the Dalit Freedom Network and President of the All India Christian Council, said: "The fact is that Dalit Christians are indeed Dalits and suffer the same humiliation, discrimination, ostracism and poverty experienced by Dalits of other faiths. To deny Dalit Christians benefits because of their religious affiliation is to discriminate against them on the basis of religion and deny them fundamental constitutional rights."

He also issued a stern warning to the Indian church: "The All India Christian Council's leadership deplores the caste system within the Indian Church and has given an open call for the Indian Church to reform itself or become redundant in the ongoing vision, struggle and emergence of an equality-, freedom- and justice-based Indian society that does not discriminate against fellow Indians on the basis of one's birth (caste), occupation (caste-based), gender or religion."

Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW, said: "CSW wholly supports this drive to give equal rights to India's Dalit Christians and Muslims. The injustice of the current Scheduled Caste legislation has been an offence to India's democracy for far too long. CSW has been campaigning with the AICC on this issue for a number of months and trusts the Government of India will take the opportunity to address this shameful injustice."

For more information, please contact Richard Chilvers, Communications Manager at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8329 0045 or email richard.chilvers@csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk

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CSW is a human rights organisation which specializes in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The rally's joint partner will be Udit Raj's All India Confederation of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) organization. The Chairman for the event will be Rev. G. Samuel, National Vice-President of the All India Christian Council.

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