Upper Caste & Dalit Catholics clash - http://ultracurrents.blogspot.com/

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Upper caste and Dalit Catholics clash

http://ultracurrents.blogspot.com/

Nirmala Carvalho - 3/10/08

Asia News

 

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Two Christians died and many

more were wounded shot by police who intervened

yesterday to stop clashes between Dalit Catholics and

upper caste Catholics in the diocese of

Pondicherry-Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu).

 

Troubles started on 7 March when a group of Dalit

Christians from the Villupuram district began a hunger

strike to protest discrimination in a local parish by

the Vanniyar.

 

Three months ago Dalits from St Jabamalais Annai

Church in Earyur built another church dedicated to

Saghaya Madha (Our Lady of perpetual Help) and sought

to have it erected as a separate parish with its own

priest.

 

They were backed in their demands by two political

groups, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Vck) and

Ambedkar Makkal Iyakkam (AMI). The VCK even put up

posters calling for the closure of St Jabamalai and

the recognition of the new parish church.

 

In response some 500 upper caste Christians went on a

rampage on Sunday, attacking Dalits and torching over

30 huts.

 

Police said that when they moved in to stop the

protest they were pelted with stones and were thus

“forced” to open fire on the aggressors. M Periy

Nayagam, 40, and A. Magimai, 24, were killed and 40

more people were wounded.

 

Fr G Cosmon Arokiaraj, secretary to the Commission for

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the Catholic

Bishops’ Conference of India, told AsiaNews that the

“confrontation in the area between Dalit and Vanniyar

Catholics goes back quite some time, but the Church

does not want to split a parish along caste line,” but

is working towards “gradually removing discrimination

against the Dalits and uprooting all forms of

discrimination.”

 

These tragic incidents show that it is urgent to ban

many forms of discrimination against Dalit Christians

both within the Christian community and especially

society at large.

 

In fact “since the Christian community is perceived as

a single entity,” he explained, “the government does

not recognise to Dalit Christians the same rights as

other Dalits.”

 

In the Indian caste system, states have granted

specific benefits and quotas in schools and public

service for Dalits to compensate for their secular low

social standing.

 

“For years Dalits have been discriminated within the

Church itself,” he said. “They cannot sit with upper

caste members in the same church; they are buried in

separate cemeteries; they cannot use the same roads as

upper caste people. When the mother of a Dalit priest

died in the 1990s the upper caste did not allow the

funeral procession to use the main road; even the

bishop failed to bring about a compromise.”

 

“In India more than 65 per cent of all Christians are

Dalit, but Christians represent only 2.3 per cent of a

population of 1.1 billion people.”

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en & art=11726 & size=A

 

Dalit Christians @

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0197/0023.html

 

Caste in Non-Hindus @

http://www.hindunet.org/home/social_contemporary_issues/hinduwoman/casteism.html

 

 

 

 

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