Question:  Paul V.A

Do you think in every Indian there is Manu sleeping, why are we even in the church so caste conscious? How to overcome this terrible evil ?

Answer: Jacob Parappally MSFS

It is a euphemism to say that Manu is sleeping in every Indian. In fact, Manu is still awake and active in every Indian whose attitude to others is determined by the caste he or she belongs to. Manusmriti promulgates regulations that are so blatantly patriarchal, discriminatory and oppressive that caste and gender discriminations acquire the status of virtues so that those who practise them are righteous and true Hindus of upper caste or dominating caste. The standard to judge the worth of humans is whether that person is a male Brahmin by birth and that he conducts himself according to the prescriptions of the brahminical traditions. Generations of Indians who have not even heard of Manu or the laws attributed to him, have imbibed Manu’s laws concerning purity and impurity, privileged and unprivileged, higher and lower, high castes and outcastes and act accordingly even in the 21st century.

Every aspect of life of an Indian is determined by the caste he or she is born into. What one should eat, whom he or she is allowed to marry, how one should relate with others, what occupation one should take up etc. are pre-determined by one’s caste. It is true that due to influence by western type of education, secular and liberal thinking some have overcome the traditional caste prejudices and liberated themselves from the oppressive caste system. However, caste consciousness affects politicians and political parties, bureaucrats and others who occupy public offices and even business establishments. Unfortunately, the caste system of Hindu religion continues to exist in one form or the other in Non-Hindu religions of India like Islam and Christianity which are prophetic religions that profess to live and proclaim the equality of all humans.

The Article 15 of the Indian constitution asserts the equality of all citizens when it says that, “No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to (a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment; or (b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public.” However, a large majority of the people belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes experience all forms of discrimination and violence due to the casteist attitudes and practices of the dominating castes. Just to cite one incident, on March 31, 2018 a Dalit youth was killed in Gujarat because he owned a horse and rode on it. The dominating caste denies the basic human rights of the dominated castes or the so called outcasts and unleash violence against them. In the context of growing fundamentalism among some of the Hindus and the political ideology of Hindutva reinforces the belief in caste superiority and inferiority and propagates it as an expression of their Hindu identity. But how can Christians have a caste-mind-set and directly or indirectly practise casteism thereby subscribing to an institutional discrimination that goes against their belief in Jesus Christ and the Church which is a communion of brothers and sisters who are equal in dignity as humans transformed by the sacrament of baptism?

Christian Enslavement to Caste Attitudes

The Catholic Church or the other Churches in India do not provide any statistics of Christians belonging to various caste groups within the Church. It would be an admission that there is caste system among the Indian Christians. Unofficial statistics show that 70% Indian Christians are Dalits and 30% belong to the dominating castes and tribes. The Syrian Christians of Kerala would not accept that there is any caste consciousness or caste discrimination among the Christians of Kerala though some years ago there were separate churches for the Dalits next to the churches of the upper caste Christians. The church of Bl. Kunjachan, the apostle of the Dalits, next to the old parish church of Ramapuram in Palai diocese stand as a historical monument of caste discrimination among the Christians, a symbol of the institutionalized discrimination of the Dalits drawing inspiration from Manu and as a blasphemous neglect of the liberative good news of the Bible.

According to a study of Rajalakshmi Clara, “The scale of discrimination against Dalit Christians is unprecedented not only in life but even after death. In churches and places of worship the Christians of ‘upper’ castes humiliate their fellow Dalit Christians by occupying the central part of the church. Dalits are assigned to the wings. They are allowed to receive communion only after the higher caste people have done so. In some Protestant churches, there are separate cups for the Dalits at the Eucharistic celebration. Some Catholic churches in Madras, dioceses like Trichy and Pondicherry even have separate communion rails and separate cemeteries, and Christians are endogamous, families only accepting matrimonial proposals of their own caste. As a result, even after hundreds of years of their existence in the Church, Dalits remain on the periphery of the community.

Death of Manu and the Resurrection of Human

The law of discrimination and exclusion lived and practised by the upper castes or dominating castes of Hindus continue to have its influence in the lives of those who have been liberated by Christ. The traditional Christian Churches take certain pride in belonging to the upper castes and continue to preserve their caste hierarchical positions by following caste prescriptions on marriage and eating of food. Paul had challenged Peter for following a casteist attitude when he refused to eat with the gentiles (Galatians 2:27-28). Peter changed his attitude in the course of time, but those in the hierarchy of the Church following the leadership of the Apostles need to change their casteist thinking and attitude and challenge the faithful with prophetic courage to treat everyone as a human being, as their brothers and sisters. All Christians are called for a deep conversion to Christ and to live the gospel values of justice, love, equality and fellowship and to liberate themselves from their enslavement to caste attitudes in their relationship to others.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) declared that “Caste discrimination is a grave social sin.” It affirmed that, “Anything that goes against human worth is against the plan of God. Caste discrimination and untouchability are against the fundamental tenets of Christian Faith. Hence, in the liturgy of Baptism there is a call to renounce casteism. However, practices of untouchability do exist in the Church. The CBCI statements painfully observe these facts and exhort the Christian community to eradicate these abominable practices. The Catholic Bishops of India have committed themselves to empower Dalits and other marginalized groups in the church and in the society.” Therefore, the CBCI recommended: “Time-bound action plans are to be initiated by every diocese to abolish all forms of practices of untouchability, discrimination and exclusion, especially in places of worship and burial grounds. If there are dual practices based on caste discrimination, such practices should be stopped forthwith. In case of failure to do so, stringent measures should be taken by the Church authority concerned.” It suggested that vocation promotion to be done to encourage the Dalits in the Church become priests and religious, the concerns of the Dalits and their cultural genius must find place in the liturgy and para-liturgical celebrations and they must inclusion in the decision-making bodies of the Church (CBCI Policy of Dalit Empowerment in the Catholic Church in India, 2016). The declaration of the CBCI itself is a positive step to overcome the caste discriminations in the Church. However, the discriminating mind-set of those who claim to belong to the dominating caste or so called upper caste must become truly Christian.

To be a Christian is to be an evolved human being who lives the life of Christ, the God who became human. As long as a Christian holds the casteist attitude of discrimination and exclusion of others on the basis of an irrational and inhuman law of caste, he or she has not become truly Christian or human. Therefore, true Christian and human attitude of treating others and relating with others as humans must be shown first of all by bishops, priests and religious as an example to the faithful. Avoiding titles that express any form of superiority over others and eschewing the use of terminologies that show caste identity and superiority as well as mingling with people and eating with those whom others treat as lower castes and outcasts is the first step towards treating them as humans. It takes courage to be a human like Jesus who associated with the so called sinners and outcasts and had table-fellowship with them. To think and feel with the victims of caste discrimination and exclusion and do everything possible to overcome them demands that the Church must die to its trappings as a religion like any other religion with laws and ritual of purity and impurity, external expressions and soulless celebrations and become a communion of humans who are brothers and sisters in Christ.