Christian Persecution Update India
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Dalits Christians threaten to abandon Congress if " reservations" denied
Dalits Christians threaten to abandon Congress
New Delhi- July 21, 2010
Christian and Minority leaders say their people plan to vote against the ruling Congress party in the coming elections if their demand for quota benefits to dalits goes unmet.
“We are seriously thinking of withdrawing the support” to the Congress government in upcoming elections, said Father Roby Kolenchery, who lead a team from Punjab to a demonstration in New Delhi.
Christians and Muslims traditionally supported Congress party, which currently heads the federal ruling alliance. It was also in power for more than five decades.
But it is a “shame that this government” cannot implement a 60-year- old demand of Christians, the priest told ucanews.com. He said successive governments have failed to implement their own promises of granting reservation benefits to dalits.
The Indian constitution allows for special benefits for dalits, members of lower castes once branded “untouchables.” But a 1950 government order limited it only to dalits of Hindus.
It was later amended to include dalits among Sikhs and Buddhists but excluded Christians and Muslims on the grounds that their religions reject the caste system.
Some 500 Christians from all over India demonstrated in New Delhi July 21 in the latest round of demonstration to press the government to make amendments.
“Ours is a non-violent protest,” said Father Cosmon Arokiaraj of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. However, he said dalit people will take “drastic steps” if government continues to ignore them.
“This is the best time to press the government” because state elections are “around the corner in many states,” said the secretary of bishops’ commission for dalit and tribal people.
Several Christians from various denominations and scores of Muslims also joined a sit-in demonstration at Jantar Mantar, a downtown area near the parliament building designated for demonstrations.
The National Council for Dalit Christians (NCDS), an ecumenical forum, organized the protest along with the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India and the National Council of Churches in India, the national association of Protestant and Orthodox Churches in the country.
The demonstrators demanded the government implement recommendations of its own commission that studied the issue. The commission headed by Justice Ranganath Misra recommended in 2007 extending quotas to Christian and Muslim dalit.
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Dalit Christians are going to get SC status.
Finally the long battle against the cruel discrimination against the
Christian Dalits are going to be over with. Now, the Dalits can come
to follow Jesus Christ without the fear of discrimination through
the tricky "Dalit status", deliberately barricaded them due to their
choice of religion.
This is the beginning of a great spiritual awkening to take place among
the Dalits to march after the cross of Jesus Christ, that will be one of
greatest historical event of revivals.
SC Status to Dalit Christians
There is no justification for the Government to delay this long pending demand as all political parties except the BJP support this demand. Is it because Dalit Christians are not resrting to violence? .It is a pity that in democratic India, a just demand will not be taken into consideration unless the people turn violent. We have the example of Gujjar agitation, when Gujjars resorted to violence, the govt immediately sorted out the issue.The mainstream media is also not reporting the peaceful agitations of dalit Christians, may be because of the small numbers of agitationists involved. It is high time that dalit christians & their supporters of this just cause should organise huge rallies all over the country. If all political parties are earnest in their support, there is no difficulty in according SC rights to dalit christians, the objection of RSS-BJP can be ignored because they do not have the support of more than 10% of Indian population. We have the case of implementation of the Mandal commission report. Also we should take into account the attempts of RSS parivar in misleading the non-christian dalits and trying to create divisions in the dalit community.
Dalit Christians to get SC status soon
New Delhi: The long-pending demand of Dalit Christians of the country would be accepted soon as Union government is going to provide Scheduled Caste status to them.
It is learnt that Union law minister, Mr Veerappa Moily is keen to settle this long pending issue very shortly. He is working overtime with his officials to settle the demand of Dalit Christians. Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and UPA chairman Mrs Sonia Gandhi are also interested to see this issue settled once and for all.
After providing SC status to Dalit Christians of the country, they would be entitled for all the benefits reserved for schedule caste people.
Sources say that Moily has recently assured the delegation of National Council of Dalit Christians (NCDC) that the UPA government would not take much time to provide SC status to Dalit Christians. Welcoming the decision of government, eminent Christian scholar and writer RV Smith said that in villages Dalits Christians are still not allowed into some areas where the upper caste population lives. They are offered menial labour, and most of the time not paid for it. At tea shops there are separate utensils for us just like for Hindu Dalits.
Statistics show that more than 70% of the Christians in India are Dalits. When Christian missionaries began their work in India in the decades before Independence, their promise of equal treatment and opportunity for all castes became the prime reason for Dalits - who find themselves at the socio-economic lowest rung of Hinduism’s hierarchy - to embrace the missionary message. But as is now well documented, conversion offered no escape from caste prejudices.
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