Church cogitates on building an 'inclusive India'

In the light of the ongoing injustice done to Dalit Christians and Muslims in India, Catholics and Protestants jointly held a seminar on "Building Inclusive India: Overcoming Social and Religious Discriminations".

Attended by Dalit activists, bishops, pastors and lay leaders, the seminar called on churches in the country to build public opinion and to sensitize local communities on the inequity meted out to people of the Dalit community.

Organised by the National Coordination Committee for Dalit Christians (NCCDC) – an umbrella body of the CBCI and NCCI - the seminar stressed on the need for a People's Tribunal and called for intense political activism in impressing the central government on the long-pending issue.

Among eminent speakers at the March 6 - 7 event were Prof. Dr. Tahir Mahmood and Dr. Mohinder Singh, both members of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM).

The NCLRM, headed by Justice Ranganath Misra, had called for the deletion of para 3 of the 1950 Presidential Order that restricted reservation benefits only to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.

"When the Preamble of the Constitution of India records 'We the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into socialist, secular, democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity', the very idea of 'We the people' has been put to risk for Christians and Muslims of SC Origin," says Rev. Raj Bharat Patta, Secretary of the Commission on Dalits, NCCI.

Christians and Muslims of the SC origin, he points, have been facing social and religious discrimination and are looked down as 'They the people'.

According to him, building an inclusive India is a constitutional and contextual necessity. In addition to this, it is also the church's necessity.

He asserts that "an inclusive India is possible only when social and religious discrimination on Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims are overcome."

"When such discriminations are overcome, 'We the People…' will be a reality doing away with 'They the People' attitudes and divisions."

Dr. Mahmood, who was also the former Chairman of the NCLRM, in his inaugural addressed enlightened the participants on the Commission's "upholding of secularism and democracy despite dissents from within the Commission."

He further said that the controversial 1950 Presidential Order was a blatant blot on the spirit of democracy and called those opposing the NCLRM report as "unfaithful" to the Constitution of India.

Prof. Satish Deshpande from the University of Delhi and the author of 'Dalits in the Muslim and Christian Communities: Study Report on current social, scientific knowledge', in his presentation held the non-State addressees along with the State accountable for the growing injustice done to Christians and Muslims of Dalit origin.

He said a gap between Dalit Christians and non-Dalit Christians has been ever widening and therefore called for intra-community inequalities to be addressed on a priority.