Prayer can dole out justice for Dalit Christians!

The court of justice is still to emancipate millions of segregated Dalit Christians in India. With a rally planned in view of the forthcoming winter session of the Parliament, it is still uncertain if our unfathomable political forces will be rectitude or continue to be an enigma. Phone calls, sit-ins, rallies, what not, it has been years and the standing continues. It is now time to look vertical than relying on our one-sided bureaucracy. It is time Christians test the power of prayer in such a predicament in which extrication seems difficult.

It has been more than fifty years that injustice was meted out to the Dalit Christian community in India. Every year church groups have been holding rallies and demonstrations to demur para 3 of the Constitution Order 1950 that dismantles the socio-economic and educational rights of those Dalits who convert from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam. Although at the beginning the Scheduled Caste status was exclusively made available for only those professing Hinduism, later it acceded the same to those believers of Sikhism and Buddhism, but not Christians.

There is now an outrage within the Christian community on the favoritism and maltreatment exhibited by the government. It is surprising that all the political parties (except BJP), including several Prime Ministers, promised to undo the inequity and discrimination. Many of their election manifestos past promised extending the benefit of reservation to Dalit Christians. Top political leaders like Karunanidhi, Prakhash Karat, Mayawati, Ram Vilas Paswan, VP Singh, Jayalalitha, Veerappa Moily, AB Bardhan and others have written to our Prime Minister urging swift action. Still with the delay of justice, the government seems to have deliberately abandoned Christians setting down the plight as trivial.

In a letter dated August 11 2005, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Prakash Karat, wrote to the Prime Minister: "I am writing to you regarding the longstanding issue of providing reservation in job for Dalit Christians. Despite being Christians they are subjected to the same social oppression and discrimination because of their scheduled caste background. Their demand that they be treated as scheduled castes for purposes of reservation is a justified one which is supported by all democratic parties." Similarly, Mayawati, the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, also wrote: "Dalit Christians, like most of their fellow Scheduled Caste Dalits of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist fathers, suffer from all forms of Social Discriminations. They are also subjected to different form of Disabilities in the economic, educational, employment, payment of wages, housing and such other Caste based Problems."

The recent politician to illimitably support the cause of Dalit Christians was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in an helicopter crash just days after his government adopted a resolution that strongly solicits the Centre to cede SC status to Christians from Dalit community. In the resolution, his government emphatically underlined that it was 'discrimination' against Christians. The same was affirmed in the report of National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) which stated that non inclusion of SC Christians was a discrimination based on religion and goes against the articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution of India.

The year 2009 will end with another rally organised by the Church to goad our biased and unsympathetic politicians for a ratification of the Order. Will the demand again fall on deaf ears? There are about 20 million Dalit Christians fighting against the deprival of their rights faced on grounds of religion. As spiritual people, what least we can do now is - pray! The Lord instructed us to pray during our time of adversities. He urged us to "not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Let us unitedly pray for the spirit of indifference to unshackle justice for our people. It is time we plead to God for his intervention.

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:13-14).