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It is natural for a system that exploited millions of people for more than 3,000 years to find means to regain dominance. The caste system that exclusively benefited the upper caste Hindus – the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas – might not have faced such an onslaught upon its status quo other than during the four hundred years that followed immediately after the life of Buddha.
Since time immemorial the three Hindu upper castes have benefited from the caste structure. The caste and its mandates have deprived the lower castes, particularly the Dalits, from land, education and a better living. In short, the caste system maintains an enforced social order where the upper castes enjoys all privileges while the lower castes such as Sudras and Dalits are expected to keep their distance from claiming equality of any form in society.
Any attempt to challenge this status quo faces stiff resistance from the upper caste. Instances of Sudra and Dalit children forced out from schools and crimes committed against educated Sudra and Dalit individuals by the upper caste count into thousands in India. There are at least a few hundred cases reported where the Sudra and Dalit individuals were either murdered or permanently disabled by the upper caste to prevent them benefiting from education. There have been at least three-dozen cases reported from various parts of India in the past ten years where Dalits were blinded by the upper caste.
More than an immediate message to the individual Dalit or Sudra who has challenged the status quo by gaining education, these instances of violence are a larger message to the community the person belongs that those who dare to get enlightened will suffer.
Caste is a denominator that associates an individual from his cradle to his grave. On these grounds the caste system is even worse than slavery. Once born into a particular caste there is no escape from it.
However the lower caste, particularly the Dalits who found that the way to liberation from this servitude is education, did not waste a single opportunity. For this they were willing to change their religion. A change in the religion was also yet another modus for an escape into freedom and a permanent way to change ones caste identity.
Against this backdrop, hundreds of Christian missionary institutions sprang up in India. This exodus of Dalits, which began a few hundred years before independence, has impacted the increase of Christians in India. While some chose to remain as unconverted Dalits, many did in fact convert to Christianity. Exploiting the opportunity, the Christian missionaries also encouraged conversions.
In the longer period the opportunity offered by conversion became the easiest way out of the caste system for Dalits. Many Sudras and several tribesmen also followed the same course. Those who got themselves converted and educated found that there is a new world to be explored where the curse of being born into a lower caste was no longer a taboo. In a society where the name is an identity tag to the caste, a change of name after conversion was an additional advantage.
It is natural for those who get educated, often better in standard and knowledge than their upper caste counterparts, to first claim their equality in status in society and further protest against any form of discrimination. It is equally natural for upper caste communities who for years exploited the Dalits, to find such challenges most provocative. The result of this provocation is what is being witnessed in India.
Unfortunately this aspect of violence is less articulated in the Indian media. Driven by political and business interests the Indian media has reduced itself to the role of an online camera that only documents and shows the most obvious – Hindus attacking Christians and Christian interests. Beneath the skin of communal unrest lives the beast of caste domination. This aspect is only reflected in very few publications so far. On this ground the Indian media has not only trivialised a larger evil looming upon the Indian people but has also lied to the Indians.
The Hindu fundamentalist political parties operating in India are engaged in nothing other than making use of the frustration of the upper caste Hindu for political gains. A divided society willing to kill and injure each other on the basis of religion or its beliefs is the best possible environment a fundamentalist political force can expect to exploit. The Nazis did the same, in the pretext of unifying Germany. The Hindu political parties in India are merely repeating it.
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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
