Reality of Humiliation:

The condition of the Dalits should be placed in the context of poverty and starvation and social discrimination which are caused by social isolation and exclusion, hegemony and every form of humiliation. Three broad divisions of the present condition should be recognized:

1. Social marginalization by communal politics;
2. Apathy of the State with regard to problems/atrocities of the Dalits; and

• Internal problem of exclusion and discrimination in the Church: The indifference of the Church authorities smacks of authoritarianism.

In this situation the Dalits, especially the Dalits who embraced Christian faith, feel lowly and left out. Their words of agony, in the words of Job, could be expressed as:

‘I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had

been carried straight from the womb to the grave!’ (Job 10:18f);

and their feeling resonates along with Chokha Mela, a Dalit bhakta from Maharastra who asked God (already in 14^th Century):

If you had to give me this birth,

Why give me birth at all?

You cast me away to be born; you were cruel,

Where were you at the time of my birth?

And the Dalit poet Kisan Phagu Bansode of Maharastra raises his poignant voice in prayer:

God! Make me a beast or a bird

But not a Mahar at all.

The reality today is that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. According to UN Development Programme the ratio of the rich to the poor is ever widening:

1913 (1:11) to 1960 (1:30) to 1991 (1:60) to 1999 (1:74).

In this context what is the meaning of ‘proclaiming good news to the poor’?: What is our good news to the people? Good news to the poor/oppressed would mean bad news to the rich/ oppressor. And what is the good news that echos from the poor and the outcasts to us and to the world? It is an evangelization from below vis-à-vis the subaltern group.

The Dalits are systematically suppressed and they are deprived of their rights step by step. The personhood of a Dalit is systematically destroyed and this destruction of identity helps the oppressor to reduce a Dalit to an object.  The object needs no rights. When one reads ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, one would understand how he systematically argued to make the Jews insignificant:

1. Everyone is very fond of one’s name – But Hitler just gave each one a number.
2. Each one pays attention to his/her hair-style: He made them appear clean shaven!
3. Each one likes to dress-up for the occasion: He gave all the uniform.

Thus each one was deprived of his/her identity and each one was reduced to an entity that could be reduced to a number and look-alike persons. And today the Dalits are reduced to a category of BC/SC which is looked down with derision and they are non-existent for many, especially who are striving for religious and ecclesiastical powers and positions. And some delude their conscience by taking solace in a meaningless non-operative and often ridiculous preferential option for the Dalits.  This option is comical and unfortunately this comical solution to a deep rooted historical injustice to the Dalits is willfully obstructed and objected by the powerful in the church.

The civil society is very much reflected much within the Church and the echo of untouchability prevalent in the society out there, directly or indirectly and covertly or overtly, is practiced in the Church and in Religious Congregations subtlety or openly. The Dalits were denied access to Vedic and Gurukul education system. Out of their ignorance the feudal system flourished. Even today the Dalits do not have, as their rights, access to our own Catholic educational institutions. The binary opposition of purity-pollution is still an operative in our society. The social impact of ‘blood-is-thicker-than-water’ is very much alive in the Catholic Church. In the social milieu out there, there is untouchability among the living but in the Catholic Church there is untouchability among the dead as well – We see how the Dalits live in the colonies at the periphery of the villages and we are also aware how the dead Dalits are condemned to a separate ‘colony’ of burial ground. The society humiliates them while they are alive and the Church continues to separate them in discrimination even after the death.

1. Anatomy of Humiliation:

Some of the strategies adopted to systematically humiliate and unreasonably discredit and unnecessarily accuse the Dalits could be seen and felt in day-to-day existence. Here are some of incidents, anecdotes, and events partly based on personal encounter and experience.

1. Stigma and Stereotypes: The concept is widely spread that Dalits are incapable and useless. When a Dalit is elected or appointed to some administrative post the immediate reaction is: ‘But he/she is a Dalit’ and even directly and indirectly remind him/her that he/she is appointed just because he/she is a Dalit. Dalits are not supposed to be people of efficiency. Someone, who is closely associated with UGC once made a comment: Thorat (Chairman of UGC) is very intelligent, even though he is a Dalit. When K. R. Narayan was elected the President of Indian Republic, his capacities and capabilities in decades of diplomatic career was not acknowledged but it was attributed that he was given a ‘chance’ since he was a Dalit. When a local Ordinary earned his doctorate one clergy seemed to have said: But he is a Dalit. The message is that the Dalits are pigmies when it comes to intelligence!  In a stereotyped way the non-Dalits would brand the Dalit priests, religious, teachers, students, and people in general, as incompetent, unfit, and hence they would eliminate them and count them out from administration.

1. Dalit Vocations: During a meeting of TN Catholic Bishops Council with the TNPCRI a few years ago, the discussion turned about non-promotion of Dalit Vocation. One of the local Ordinaries said that vocations should come from ‘good families’. Though this statement was challenged on the floor, the implication is that the Dalit families are no good (because they are untouchables) and God could ‘touch’ only the good families and not the ‘untouchables’! Just see when onwards the Dalits were taken in to the seminaries or into religious congregation and why only Dalits are sent out enmasse saying they do not have vocation. God proposes but man/woman disposes, when it comes to vocation. (Or, let us be honest to say that God does not call anyone at all!). Attempts were made to send out Dalit candidates to northern parts/Provinces where they could be tolerated.

1. Dalit Formation: A cursory look at various religious congregations would indicate that even the few Dalits who managed to survive in the religious life would be utilized for menial and household jobs (with a few exceptions perhaps). They would not be sent for higher education even if they exhibit potential for intellectual or administrative training. Even when one or two manages to do higher studies, reaching to the level of administrators or Seminary Rector or formation-in-charge would be unfilled-dream.  Just check the statistics for the number of Dalit priests or religious in ‘power’ which involves decision-making positions. Is it because the Dalits are incapable of administration or is it because non-Dalits cannot imagine taking ‘orders’ or ‘directions’ from the Dalit ‘Superior’? Role-Exchange is still unthinkable for caste-moulded people.

1. Dalit Brand: Amidst such neglect or discrimination, when the Dalits represent the case and fight for fairness and justice, the Dalits would be branded as bundles of emotions and as reactionary who demand ‘too much’. As social awareness becomes stronger and compelling, it is natural that one cries for justice and fights for rights: Yahweh could hear the cry of the slaves in Egypt and could make them a great nation; Yahweh could hear the heart-rending cry on the Cross and make Him the corner stone of God-Human edifice as the Lord of all. But with us the Dalit cry falls into a deaf-ear.

1. Dalit Servitude: Jesus said the servant is entitled to his/her wage (Lk 10:7). But in the case of the Dalit no credit would be offered. While appreciation of the Dalit for their contribution would be minimal, the criticism for the same work would be maximum. In a premier college in Chennai a building was put up at the cost of over ` One Crore. Instead of appreciating for finding the resources, the Religious Community was jumping on the person for putting up the name of the donor (who offered ` 50 lakhs) on the building as though the name and fame of the entire institution was defaced (Though another building in the same campus, as a precedence, has the name of the donor – But it was done by a non-Dalit!). In another institution of higher learning one said: Why should I take direction for the Dalit? The one who said that was the Superior of the Community and one who gave the direction was the Director of works (the Principal)! When a Dalit succeeds the immediate comment is: After all, you are a Dalit! (Till today I do not understand the implication of this statement – Does it mean the Dalits have to be only as servants all the time for all generations?).

There is a modern untouchability practiced, that is, taking the Dalits for granted. A Dalit might put in enormous amount of work for the success of a project but he/she would not be acknowledged. A Dalit, as an individual, is not considered worth one’s praise and appreciation!

1. Dalit as a Laughingstock: When Obama’s campaign for US Presidentship was at its height, the papers made sarcastic comments as: Black man in White-House! In the same way, the Dalits are the laughingstock of people. Centuries ago one raised the classical question: Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth (Jn 1:14). But he had the humility to see for himself the good out of Nazareth and became the disciple of Jesus. Today many raise the same question: Can a Dalit do anything good or praiseworthy? Even after seeing the wonders that the Dalits do, the attributes are only cynical comments and critical derogative comments only. The achievement of a Dalit would be minimized but his/her shortcomings would be maximized!

1. Impression vs Facts: Even when the Dalits do something great only negative comments are spread. Towards the end of the sixteenth century Galileo had to challenge the well-known and well-accepted concept of Physics. The honoured-dictum of Aristotelian physics was that objects of different weights fall at different speeds. According to Aristotle, cannonball of ten kgs, for example, would be expected to fall ten times faster than a musket ball of only one kg. Even when Galileo proved, dropping one heavier and one lighter cannon ball from the top of the eight-storey Leaning Tower of Pisa, that both the cannon balls could reach the base simultaneously – People still gave credit to Aristotle. Again he has to face another of the prevailing wisdom: It was believed that ice was heavier than water, since the normally flat-bottomed pieces of ice floated anyway because of their shape, which failed to pierce the fluid surface. Galileo knew ice to be less dense than water, and therefore lighter, so that it always floated, regardless of its shape. He could show this by submerging a piece of ice and then releasing it under water to let it pop back up to the surface. But still people believed that ice was denser than water!

Even when Ekalaivan, a Dalit, equaled Arjuna in archery he was not accepted as an eminent student – He had to learn the art by himself. Take the dictum of a non-Dalit in a religious community: Non-Dalits feel as appendix! When percentage of Dalits do not even exceed 10% in number; when the percentage of Dalits as Superiors or Directors of Works does not exceed even 5%, still the talk is: Dalits dominate and Non-Dalits are appendices. Even after presentation of statistics with regard to staff (both teaching and non-teaching) and of the students in the educational institution of a religious order which shows that the Dalits, both of staff and of students, are very small, the impression is that the Dalit option is exclusive not preferential! Just one example: The rumour, among the vested interest group, that admission in the new Jesuit engineering college is only for the Dalits – This is spread even by the non-Dalits who obtained admission in the college! When a lie is repeated over and again, people tend to take it for truth.

The efficiency of the Dalits would be eclipsed in the clouds of criticism, at times nasty and dirty and over often below the belt level. The envy and malice also turned into condemnation of the Dalit successes. And at the same time the non-Dalits exploit the Dalits using the efficient Dalits for their own vested interest and power and glory.

1. Guerilla War (Anonymous Letters): Even when one succeeds in spite of the biting comments and damaging remarks, the next step is character assassination. The usual frontal attacks, as accusation, would be: favourtism, nepotism, illegitimate relationship with women (lay as well as religious), hoarding of black money abroad (including Swiss-Banks!). If a Dalit administrator proves his mettle, the next step in the string of anonymous letter is that the biological father/mother of the Dalit would be a non-Dalit (meaning only non-Dalit could possess intelligence and administrative capacity). When occasionally a Dalit is proposed for either ecclesiastical or administrative positions, any number of anonymous letters would be scripted against him to the concerned authority. And the Church as well as Religious authorities would take it seriously, without even verifying the veracity and the authenticity of such accusations, and would set aside the dossier of the candidate under consideration. A Dalit has to put in about 200% hard work in order to get about 5% recognition but for others it would be the other way around! Normally the anonymous letters would consist of false-accusations, hearsay originating from vested interest groups etc but then the argument would be: there is no smoke without fire, meaning unless what is said is true why should people talk about it all the time? If only one would look around one would understand how loyal and dedicated are the Dalits to their masters and to the Church organizations/institutions.

1. Religious Honour-Killing: Out there we often read so much about ‘honour killing’ which has now attracted the attention of the Supreme Court. But in the religious congregations so many are mercilessly massacred – Either they are quitting, unable to bear with the humiliation or they silently suffer so much of discrimination and neglect and are at the point of depression and dejection. Some become bitter inside but they live as moving machines!

1. Instigation of Others: If guerilla war does not succeed, the next one would be proxy war! This happens often in religious congregations: Non-religious groups, often having social affinity, would be instigated to rise against the Dalits. Inside information would be passed on to them and they would either spread false rumours or print posters or write to higher authorities (often in the name of some ‘association’ or ‘trust’). Recently a number public interest litigations (PIL) have been registered against the preferential option for the Dalits. One of the PILs states that in a caste-less Church, a religious group is bringing casteism through the preferential option for the Dalits (though the Dalits are the outcasts). Ironically the same group has written a letter to the Major Superior of the organization signed with about 20 people and each one has mentioned his caste-name. Interestingly in the native place of the leader, who claims that there is no caste-system in the Catholic Church, there is two-tumbler system practiced in the tea-shop!

1. Dividing the Dalits: ‘Divide and rule’ is still lingering even after the British have left India. The Dalits are set, based on the so called sub-castes, one against the other. The tension between the PLs and PRs or between PLs and PRs and SKs. Through allurement of money and promise of power, the Dalits are easily bought and they are set against themselves leading to weakening their solidarity as well as defeating their purpose of human rights and equality. Dalits are bought by the priests and the religious by money of the Church/Congregation which is supposed to be used for the good the people of God. Religious groups and non-Dalits NGOs are placing a very destructive role in dividing the Dalits.

One could see the techniques of Inquisition are very much used in setting one against the other:

1. The Holy Inquisition bribed people to denounce others – The so called ‘familiars’ would depose to the Inquisition anyone whom they suspect or whom the Inquisition wanted to suspect. Some Dalits are used as spies against upcoming leaders in order to ‘nib them in the bud’.
2. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries the Inquisitions of Portugal and Spain were the key public institutions consolidating the concept of purity of blood. Converted Jews or Turks would not be allowed to hold any ecclesiastical or temporal positions. In the same way, to keep up the principle of purity-pollution, the Dalits would not be tolerated in power or position lest they should pollute the sacred seats of power! Indeed this is a modern form of Inquisition.

1. Public vs Hidden Scripts: This is a modern hypocrisy. Many have a public script and a hidden script. In public they are all for the liberation and empowering the Dalits but in private they would dig the grave for the surviving Dalit potentials. There are people who would represent Dalit rights in international level but at local level they would work against the upcoming of the Dalits, of course subtly.

There are many other ways and means to systematically destabilize and dehumaize the Dalits and to demoralize them. People are well aware that empowering the Dalit means at some point of time taking orders from the Dalits. And that cannot be! For many people, the religious path had become simply an excuse for the exercise of power and they are particular that this should not happen to the Dalits which would be the real empowering of the Dalits. But the Dalits chime with Martin Luther: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’.  The Dalits echo the words: Let us not be discriminated by our creed, nation, or race but by the content of our character.  Along with Nelson Mandela the Dalit say today: ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?… We are all meant to shine… We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in every one. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others’.

1. Counter-Mindset to Humiliation:

Now to reimaging or to rectifying the Dalit-problem we need to go back to the Bible and the biblical theology that should result in paradigm shift and a new theological discourse ought to be introduced.

1. Paradigm shift:

The Bible story is of liberation from repression, namely from slavery to a great and powerful nation. Yahweh, the prophets, and Jesus stood for the poor and the marginalized. You just remove from the Bible all the pertaining passages to the poor and justice and what remains is just a skeleton. Where do we stand with respect to the option for the poor and the Dalits? In Egypt, as Jon Sobrino puts it, Yahweh heard the cries that the overseers’ cruelty forces from the people of Israel. For that reason alone God stoops to liberate them, and by doing so, reveals himself as their God. In Jesus’ trial, God sees the injustice committed against the just and innocent; God sees the injustice committed against the just and the innocent and God reacts and raises him from the dead, and by doing so, reveals himself as the one who holds power over death. Jesus, in turn, surrounds himself with beggars, prostitutes, tax-collectors and fishermen. What he meant by this was that the divine spark is in every soul and is never extinguished. God can be called ‘God of the Israelites’ but, for many, God cannot be called ‘God of the Dalits’ – But God of the Bible is always on the side of the oppressed and the marginalized!

1. Crucified people:

Jon Sobrino, in his book ‘Witnesses to the Kingdom’ states that martyrial reality is real in the society and the Church. The martyr is courageous as he/she stands for value/conviction. Sobrino makes a distinction between Jesuanic martyrs and crucified people: Jesuanic martyrs are those as Jesus did, namely, active martyrs – Lives are taken out of them violently and unjustly. Crucified people are the passive martyres – These are the poor and victimized majorities. These are the people who are filled with misfortunes ending in slow death of poverty or the violent death of massacres due to religious and social injustices and discrimination. The Dalits are today the crucified people as they are every day crucified afresh on the cross of humiliation, neglect, marginalization, discrimination etc. And the foot of the cross of humiliation is still dripping with blood of character assassination, indiscriminate humiliation, and untold miseries.

Jon Sobrino writes: “… the poor are bent down under the weight of existence, for their most important and hardest task is simple survival. They are silenced, robbed of dignity and words to speak; they are im-potent, powerless to claim and use their rights; they are disdained, for they cannot do what the imposed culture requires of them; they are in-significant, counting for nothing; and they are increasingly non-existent within the machinery of economic production. The poor are non-beings, who have become poor because everything was snatched away from them. In Jesus’ time the poor were the pitiable, the sick, women, sinners/publicans. Today we must add to their ranks the marginalized, members of certain races and cultures, and emigrants – especially the women in each group” (Witnesses to the Kingdom, Orbis Books, NY, 2003, p. 139).

iii. Glory of God:

Nothing is more important to God than the poor. In the poor and the downtrodden Isaiah contemplated the Suffering Servant of Yahweh; Paul saw the crucified Jesus. Ireneaus in the second century said: Gloria Dei, vivens homo (The glory of God lives in the human being); in the last century Archbishop Oscar Romero said: Gloria Dei, vivens pauper (The glory of God lives in the poor); and today we could say, with a sense of justice, Gloria Dei, vivens Dalit (The glory of God lives in the Dalits). The Jesuit saint Alberto Hurtado said: ‘The poor man is Christ’. The invitation to us is to walk the talk. We don’t even seem to do what the Govt is doing for the marginalized – In the recent professional college admissions the TN Govt has allocated seat-reservation for BCMuslims (BCM) and and SCArunthathyars (SCA) in addition to BC and SC reservations – Have we evolved anything similar for the Dalit Catholics in the Church and in religious congregations?

God and the poor/marginalized cannot be separated since the rights of the poor/marginalized are the rights of God (Prov 17:5). In the beginning of the Church the poor were well taken care of. There was no one in the group who was in need (Acts 4:34). Later, once the Church got institutionalized and gained religious and political power, the Church began neglecting the poor and today they are neglected, nay discriminated. From social inequality, repression of the have-nots began, leading to communal injustice. This brought in poverty and its outcome, namely marginalization. The marginalized and the repressed are the Christ today. The challenge and privilege today is to bring the historically lowly and those in social periphery to the centre of the Church and society.

Our Church and our faith are based on a conflict, a cross, and therefore on a resurrection. The conflict is between the power of the rich and the exploitation of the poor as well as the repression of the marginalized. In the words of Isaiah, the Dalits are ‘despised and rejected’ (Is 53:3) but could the Church echo with Jesus the words of Isaiah, ‘to set at liberty those who are bruised’ (Lk 4:18)? St Ignatius of Loyola, during the spiritual exercises, suggests us to stand at the foot of the cross of humiliation for the Dalits and ask ourselves the following three questions:

1. What have I done for the mangled marginalized who hang on the cross of discrimination?
2. What am I doing to alleviate the suffering of the neglected marginalized?

• What ought I to do for the repressed Dalits?

Jesus was crucified once but the Dalits are crucified so often on the cross of discrimination and humiliation and the foot of the cross is still wet with their blood-shed. If the Church is not able to address the untouchability and bring in effective measures, then the Church has failed in her mission here on earth. That is the reason why there is much exodus from the Catholic Church to other forms of Churches.

Counter-Current to Humiliation:

If the Church and Religious Congregations are genuine and serious about God’s creating even the Dalits in his own image and likeness (Gen 1:26), it should be realized in concrete and meaningful concrete action plan.

1. Data on the Dalits: The Indian Govt has initiated the next census which would include the caste as well. The Church could recommend it strongly and at the same time to conduct a professional census with regard to Catholic Dalits in the Church.
2. While the Govt is going all out to reserve seats for the BCs and MBCs and SC/STs the Church should do better with regard to affirmative action – This year the TN Govt has encouraged the first generation learners with considerable reduction in fees. Recently the Supreme Court judgement permitted 4% reservation quota for socially and economically backward Muslims. But what we find in the Catholic Church, Catholics are filing writ-petition and public interest litigation questioning the Dalit option in admissions and appointments. And the Church is a silent spectator to this! The Church and the Religious Congregation should be proactive with regard to affirmative action.
3. The 10-Point Programme of the TNBC, which was reduced to 8-Point Programme, should be effectively implemented.
4. The Church and the Religious Congregations should come up with concrete proposals to bring in the Dalits from the receiving end of the society and the Church to the centre of decision-making in Church and Religious administration.
5. Efforts should be taken to promote vocations among the Dalits (as the Catholic Church is formed 65% of the Dalits) and they should be trained in efficiency and effectiveness in order to become men and women of creativity, competence, commitment, and compassion.
6. In all the educational and professional institutions of the Catholics the marginalized, the first generation learners and the slow learners should get prior attention in their formation.
7. There should be more grass root level people’s institutions, movements, primary schools and rural based hostels to improve the education of the Dalit children.
8. There is need for attitude adjustment. This calls for conversion, namely intellectual acceptance of equality of the Dalits and heart-level realization of their dignity as brother and sisters of Jesus and hence of us.

III. Emergence of Dalit Self-Empowerment:

The power of the Dalit is slowly emerging, giving hope for the fruition but there is need to give impetus to overcome the obstacles all along. A non-Dalit can understand the situation of a Dalit rationally but a Dalit would sympathize with the Dalit situation emotionally. It is not mere feeling for the marginalized but it is becoming the oppressed that is needed now in order to emerge as the power from within.

1. Empowering: Emerging Dalit paradigm

The Dalits are becoming aware of their power as well as their rights. They need to feel the power within. As Paulo Coelho says in his novel ‘The Alchemist’, the Dalits feel: When you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it. Hence we should realize our ability to transform the marginalized into leaders of the society. Again, as Paulo Coelho would put it in his novel ‘The Fifth Mountain’, the Dalits leaders come to realize that they are invited to go up to the gods in the fifth mountain (of power) and to go down to the people in need; they have the courage to face gods and they have the compassion to do the best for the people; and they are the bridge between the All Mighty and the Nameless. The invitation is to march with the marginalized.

This needs a mindset and a paradigm shift. We need to design a cradle-to-grave programme for the needy and the marginalized to become powerful. As knowledge is potential power, we need to start institutions and training centres both academic and professional in order to empower them through relevant and effective education. We need to train the downtrodden as leaders starting from Panchayat to Corporate levels to international levels in order to turn them as social and political leaders with sound economy.

1. Signs of Emerging Leadership:

The ever increasing restlessness and protests and demonstrations, both at local as well as at national levels are the signs of demands for equality and human dignity. We see more and more Dalits are slowly ascending the steps of economy and leadership but this needs to be accelerated. But caution is needed to shun self-serving leaders with vested interest and we need persons who could coopt the Dalit leadership in other social and political organization.

If the social or religious organization does not take efforts to ensure the empowerment of the marginalized, there would come up Dalit uprising. One could see how it is already coming up: For example, it is learnt that most of the People’s War Group and to some extent Maoist Groups are of the marginalized and discriminated people and out of frustration they are at war with the dominant groups of power and authority. The eruption of the Naxalite movement in 1960s was the outcome of oppression due to casteism and feudal system. If the needs of the marginalized, even in the religious milieu, are not effectively and meaningfully addressed the Church also might face the same fate. For the affected say: We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream’ (Amos 5:24). The Dalit hearts are getting restless like the bottom of volcanoes – It might erupt anytime and consume the obstacles on the way in the lava that wreaks vengeance. Hence the choice is between the Church giving in under pressure from the militants or the Church, out of conviction, takes a pro-active role to empower the poor and the marginalized.

iii. Entrepreneurship:

From economic stability the Dalits should reach social prominence (where they would not be adversely discriminated) and eventually reaching political dominance. More effective way to empower the powerless would be to start entrepreneur centres (through Micro-Finance Institutions) which would help the marginalized to pick up some business (supported by cooperatives). This would ensure economic stability paving the way to decline in social disabilities. The next phase would be considerable degree of self-reliance which eventually builds up political dominance. This is the model that has been effective in Jenubhavi in Belgaum (Karnataka) where the Samagars (dealing with shoe-making) could eventually claim not only equality but dominance over the dominant Lingayats. The Samagars were not allowed to enter village temples, nor to draw water from the common well, and they were not served in teashops and hotels. Drinking water was given to the Samagars by upper castes in such a way as to avoid direct contact between each other’s vessels. But now, in about four decades, as businessmen the Samagars emerged as the main donors for village affairs and they are the decision makers in the village.

1. Assertive Dalit Voice:

The plight of the Dalits should be made known to all, both at national as well as international levels. The many journals and books on the Dalit-atrocities are making their impact but it has to be widened and strengthened. This needs concerted efforts. Otherwise, the impatience of the suppressed might turn to violence. If it is felt that retaliation and violence is the only language which is understood by others, then the frustrated youth would resort to it and it would be destructive and self-defeating.  If the purpose of humiliation is to subdue them, thinking that due to humiliation and dejection eventually the Dalits would give up and they would be back to square one, it would backfire and boomerang. Already the distant thunder is heard: There is resistance building up both at social and political level.  Check out the Maoists and Naxalites – most of them are youngsters, very many of them well educated. A good percentage of them are from the Tribals and Dalits – The stress of discrimination and absence of justice burst out as violence! The same trend might explode in the Church as well.

Conclusion:

The option for the Dalits is not optional for the Church. Let us keep working for the empowering the marginalized. Our liberation is that those at the receiving end in the society should become the command centre of the society. This should be the outcome of our marching with the marginalized. The empowerment of the powerless is bound to happen – But it is up to us to accelerate, ensure and enrich the process. The time is ripe with the awareness among the Dalits of their rights and dignity and it should be the time of courage on our part to empower them. For the Dalits it is the failure of fear and for others it is the fear of failure! Hence let us be people of creativity, quality and ethics – Let these three words summarize our life and work in the process of annihilating the anatomy of humiliation and in building up the Dalit power.

One possibility is to realize that after all these humiliations, for a Dalit to be happy is very difficult. The other possibility is to take the road of self-respect, encountering the obstacles with courage. The second might be the road less-travelled – One should take the road less travelled and that would make all the difference!

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Paper presented during the national seminar on: Reimaging the Relationship between Christianity and Dalit Liberation on Sep 10^th 2010, Chennai.

Cf Jeevadhara, XLI (241) 2011 26-34.