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Recognising Dalit Christians Sir, Clubbing the three epistles of Mr B L Kachroo (Your mail column November 25) and Messers Ravi Ji Raina and R K Sher (your mail column November 26) in response to my write-up (Your mail column November 13) I wish to defend my advocacy on the following grounds : Mr B L Kachroo should know that the Honourable Supreme Court of India has long since been pleased to observe in the Mandal Case (November 30, 1992): ''If backwardness caused by historical discrimination and its consequential disadvantages are the reasons for reservations, the constitution mandates that all backward classes of citizens, who are victims of the continuing ill-effects of prior discrimination, whatever be their faith or religion, or whether or not they profess any religion, receive the same benefits which are accorded to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Articles 270 Mandal Case Judgement, Vol 6 No. 9, November 30, 1992 AIR 1992 SC 273:8). Casteism is the bane of entire Indian Society. It has impoverished the Dalits and rendered them deeply powerless and dependent. With its Aryan roots it has internalised and legitimised the most inhuman forms of oppression, and almost completely enslaved the Dalits- culturally and ideologically. Caste and backwardness should be the criterion for reservations and not religion. This is what the Dalit Christians demand. This is also what Mr Kachroo also advocates while pleading the cause of the backward Kashmiri Pandit classes. The word ''Dalit'' is not found in the Christian Scriptures as has been pointed out by the learned scribe. Very true. Our Scriptures have been originally written in Hebrew, Greek, Armanian, and Latin. The word is a Sanskrit word. Equallants are there like ''Downtrodden'', ''Under dogs'', ''Torn-asunder'', ''poor''. It means one and the same thing. It is not the word but the meaning which matters Jesus enjoins on us ''Help the poor, the down-trodden and those torn asunder.'' Mr Kachroo is not correct when he says that Caste discrimination is a thing of the past. National Human Rights Commission (August 1996) has this to say : ''Violations on Dalits from June 1984 onwards are as follows: 500 Dalits are murdered annually, 4000 are burnt, 400 to 900 are sujected to arson, and 10,000 have faced other offences, thus making an average of 15,000 cases of atrocities annually. In 1995 alone, violations included 513 murders, 400 grevious injuries, 439 cases of arson, and 787 cases of rape. On July 29, 1998 Mrs Maneka Gandhi gave this information to Parliament ''Despite the constitutional mandate, untouchability is prevalent in 12 states- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Pondicherry Mr Kachroo should know that no one promises green pastures to the Christian converts. Actually the convert has to take the pledge: I shall love my neighbour as myself. '' ''I shall not do unto others as I would not like to be unto me.'' and the like. To advocate that the Dalit Christians should come back to their fold to reap the benefits of reservations sounds prima-facies preposterous and goes against the very spirit of Article 25 of the Constitution of India. Mr Vir Ji Raina has relied on the observations of Lokmaniya Balgangadhar Tilak. The well founded historical researches as of now available manifest overwhelmingly that Aryans were outsiders. The Sindhu Valley civilization flourished long before the Aryans came to India. The people or peoples who originated and developed the great civilization belonged to four distinct racial types, viz Proto-Australoid, Mediterranean, Alpinoid, and Mangoloid. This has been proved after scientific examination of the human skeletons and skulls found at Mohenjodaro. It is accepted by the historians world-wide that people of the Sindu Valley Civilization were Dravadians of the Mediterranean type. This conclusion is further supported when we compare this civilization with that depicted in the Rigveda. The presence of Siva-image and Linga, the absence of horse, the worship of icons, prove that Sindu Civilization was quite distinct from, and earlier than, the Aryan Civilization represented in the Rigveda, for the latter lays great stress on horses, both in religious and secular life, regards the Siva-linga with contempt, and no image of gods and goddesses. The importance of Mother Goddess in the former is also a notable distinction, for the female deities play no important part in Rigvedic pantheon. The Dravadians had to fight for their existence and there are several passages in the Rigveda which indicate the severity of the struggle. The Aryans who came to India had a previous history and belonged to a very ancient stock and of human race and lived for a long time with their forefathers of the Greek, the Roman, the German, the English, the Dutch, the Scandinavia the Spanish, the French, the Russian, and the Bulgarian nations. Some words, denoting essential ideas of civilised man, are still used in common by their descendants, although removed from one another by hundreds of miles and thousands of years. Thus the Sanskrit words ''pitar'' and 'matar'' are essentially the same as ''pater'' and ''mater'' in Latin, ''patar'' and ''matar'' in Greek,'' ''father'' and ''mother'' in English, and ''Pater'' and ''muter'' in German, all denotion most notable of the earliest notions of mankind, that of parents. A study of Rig Veda 10.90 (Verse 12) shall clearly indicate that the Aryans paved the pay for much abhorred Caste-system and was not therefore based on the imagination of Manu as Mr Ravi Ji Raina feels: ''The Brahmana was his mouth, and/his arms were made the Rajanya/his thighs became the Vaisya, and/from his feet was the Sudra born. ''As time went on those who opposed the Aryan Invaders were relegated to a position of outcastes and Sudra was a degraded being because the feet indicate manual labour. The other views expressed by the Scribe are his personal convictions hence there appears no need to comment on them. To Mr R K Sher I wish to make clear that Christianity is the only religion wherein we are told that God became man and died a humiliating death on the Cross to wash away the Sins of the entire human race. This was not found in the religion practiced by my household. This was the appeal for me. Besides Conviction is Conviction and such, is not subject to scrutiny. It was the Conviction in Secularism and Nationalism that made 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits, Christians, Sikhs and a few Kashmiri Muslims to flee their homes and to live refugee life elsewhere. Yours etc... |
