Interested Parties: This file is 560 lines long. It is the World Council
of Churches (Geneva Headquarters) position paper on its Dalit Solidarity
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THE DALIT SOLIDARITY PROGRAMME
Ecumenical Action on
Racism
Unit III - W.C.C.
THE DALIT SOLIDARITY PROGRAMME
OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
The Dalit Solidarity Programme is part of the programme work of
Ecumenical Action on Racism, within WCC's Unit III on Justice,
Peace and Creation.
It is intended to help focus the attention of the WCC member
churches on the situation of the Dalits in India and their call for
justice.
It is not a project-oriented programme and does not cut across or
replace already existing development/aid links between the Dalit
community and donor agencies or support groups.
The Dalit Solidarity Programme was not conceived as a funding
instrument or a development/aid programme, but as an expression,
within the WCC structure, for the commitment and resources of the
WCC to be used in appropriate ways to actualize the spirit of
solidarity expressed in the Seventh Assembly of the WCC held in
Canberra 1991, when it was said: "The Dalits are the poorest of the
poor, the most exploited ... we must express our solidarity with
them and extend our support in their struggle."
The resources of the Dalit Solidarity Programme, in terms of staff
time, information and finance, are to be concentrated on projects,
consultations or exchanges which directly give impetus to the
realization of Dalit emancipation within Indian society.
The work of the Dalit Solidarity Programme is with people from all
sections of the Dalit community, Christian, people of other faiths
and secular.
Through the work of the Dalit Solidarity Programme, the World
Council of Churches hopes to build a partnership with the Dalit
community which gives the WCC a helpful role outside India and a
constructive role within India, in cooperation with the Indian
churches.
THE DALIT SOLIDARITY PROGRAMME
One of the first references to the plight of the Dalit people,
within a WCC forum, was in the WCC World Consultation on Racism,
held in the Netherlands in June 1980.
According to Barbara Rogers in her book, "Race: no peace without
justice"
"a representative of the Untouchables caused quite a stir
when he called for the floor microphone at the end of one
long session to plead for outside help for his people. He
broke down in tears as he told the plenary that
Untouchables were being murdered, beaten, raped and
abused every day throughout India, while nobody outside
knew what was happening and the people were completely
friendless within India itself. Although his English was
difficult to follow for some, many were very moved by his
appeal and the very evident despair it conveyed. He
regained his composure sufficiently to make a strong case
for this particular issue being considered very much a
part of racism as a whole, since Untouchables were the
"Africans" or black people of India, the original
inhabitants who were enslaved and robbed of their
birthright by Aryan invaders some 1500 years ago."
A second noteworthy intervention came during the Sixth Assembly of
the WCC, held in Vancouver, Canada 1983. The Revd M. Azariah (later
Bishop Azariah) spoke from the floor of a plenary session, asking
that reference be mae to the "Outcastes" in the Assembly's report
on Human Rights. He said:
"I would like to request to insert a paragraph on the
plight of the Outcastes in India, whose number is in
terms of millions. I also understand there are similar
groups in places like Japan--the Buraku--and there are
other countries where you find these kinds of people.
While migrants and refugees are included in the Statement
[on Human Rights], and their human rights are recognized
as being under stress, certainly the Outcastes in India
and elsewhere need to be given special attention. I would
like to plead that the Outcastes in India are suffering
worse in their own country. Without any land for them,
this is indeed a human rights question also. Recently,
the issue was raised as a Human Rights matter in the UN
also."
Although his suggestion was not taken up, he made enough impact to
cause further informal conversations and even to draw personal
criticism from India delegates that he should have raised such an
"internal Indian matter" in the Assembly.
Later, the Revd Azariah was appointed a Consultant to the
Commission of the WCC Programme to Combat Racism and, in that
capacity, offered to act as host for the Commission's 1989 meeting,
which was subsequently held in Madras in November of that year.
Some PCR Commissioners visited Dalit communities and organizations
in North & South India and reported to the Commission meeting. One
of the Commissioners, Stina Karltun of Sweden, said:
"The Dalit movements for liberation are in a growing
phase. Their task is enormous because the oppression is
deep-rooted in the culture of India. The mobilization of
the Dalits seems to get stronger every day. So do also
the conservative Hindu movements. This means polarization
and confrontation.
The Dalit movements are also in a process of finding
their way. Some organizations are competing with each
other. But there is a will to unite that might get
stronger as the movements develop.
Already there are a number of institutions which work
with documentation/theology/study of Dalit history,
religion, culture, etc. These play an important role in
making the issue known inside India as well as in the
rest of the world."
Finally, the Commission passed a number of resolutions, among them:
"That PCR uphold the struggle for liberation and identity
of the Dalit people, both within the WCC staff and before
the member churches;
That PCR establish cooperative ventures with Christian
and other Dalit groups, with a view to extending
consciousness of their situation--through publications
and exchange visits;
That WCC urge member churches in India to include Dalit
people in WCC meetings and delegations;
That PCR put together study material on Dalit issues for
sharing with the WCC member churches through the General
Secretary of WCC, in time for the Canberra Assembly,
February 1991."
Over the next 18 months PCR staff strengthened their contacts with
Dalit communities, though most networking was done with Christian
Dalit communities. From those informal discussions a staff proposal
for a "Dalit Support Programme" was developed.
The paper recognized the importance of supporting Dalit leaders and
organizations as they evolve international strategies to achieve
justice and equality. It proposed that the Dalit community, through
a series of WCC-sponsored consultations in India, discuss long-term
objectives and strategies for the Dalit movement and propose
specific ways in which the WCC could play a supportive role.
This paper was circulated widely throughout India, and over fifty
responses were received. Almost all were in favour of the Proposal,
though some sought more clarifications of the process the WCC
intended to follow. Perhaps the strongest comment, made many times,
was that any programme sponsored by the WCC should encompass all
sectors of the Dalit community. WCC staff realized that they had to
strengthen their contacts with Dalit individuals and organizations
of other faiths and with secular groups. A name change to "Dalit
Solidarity Programme" was adopted as a result of this consultation
process.
In the meantime the officers of the PCR Commission accepted a staff
proposal that the Dalit Solidarity Programme should be the 14th
Programmatic Category of PCR's work.
This was significant in that it translated the mandate govern by
the PCR Commission meeting in Madras (1989) into specific programme
focus. It was now an official programme of PCR, ready to recruit
funds and seek support from WCC member churches.
The Seventh Assembly of the WCC, held in Canberra, Australia,
provided the next impetus. One of the Statements adopted by the
Assembly was entitled "Indigenous Peoples and Land Rights" in which
a call was made for "member churches to move beyond words to action
in working towards the goal of justice through sovereignty, self-
determination and land rights for Indigenous Peoples."
It said:
"... the WCC should continue to work with indigenous
peoples to ensure that issues identified by them, their
communities and organizations, will be heard and acted
upon. We affirm the growing consciousness of indigenous
peoples' struggle for freedom, including that of the
Dalits of India."
This was a significant statement in the development of the Dalit
Solidarity Programme. It not only provided a mandate but it also
indicated the WCC's recognition of the place of Dalit people within
Indian society.
The history of India has largely ignored the place of the
"Untouchable" community before the Aryan invasion in the 16th
century. Though there are many complicated strands of early Indian
history, archaeological and anthropological evidence today clearly
links those who are today called Tribal People or Scheduled Tribes
and Scheduled Castes. They were the victims of the invasion from
the North. Some were driven into the forests by the invaders; they
managed to retain much of their culture and identity. Today they
are referred to as the Tribal People. Others were enslaved by the
invaders, eventually becoming the converts of the war, outside the
four-fold varna system -- the Untouchables. Another group, also
victims of the invasion, escaped to become the "criminal class". It
was Dalit leader Dr Ambedkar who pointed towards the Criminal,
Aboriginal Tribes and Untouchables having a common beginning.
In August 1991, at the annual session of the United Nations Working
Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, a Dalit man sought the
floor to address the meeting as an Indigenous Person of India. He
said:
"I stand before you ... as one of India's 200 million
Indigenous Peoples who are referred to by my nation's
Constitution as 'people belonging to Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes'. By choice we have come to call
ourselves by the appellation 'Dalits', a poetic term
which means 'the oppressed or the downtrodden' ...
Historical evidence points to the fact the Dalits were
the original inhabitants of the land which is known as
India ... They were distinct people or nations,
possessing distinct cultures, laws and customs very much
similar to the Indigenous People of North America. Like
them, the Dalits too were overrun by foreign invaders, in
this case the Aryans from the West.
These Aryan invaders imposed on our people not only their
political rule, but also a certain religio-social
hierarchical system which is part and parcel of the Hindu
civilization of India -- which is also know as casteism.
Our homesteads were plundered and confiscated by these
invaders, and we were relegated to the out-skirts of our
towns and villages, where for thousands of years we have
lived huddled up, as outcastes and in abject poverty,
bonded for life to our alien masters. Today, we are still
conquered nations with distinct cultures, which India
calls Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
In this pernicious and degrading system which persists to
this moment, our nations are considered inherently
inferior, sub-human, polluting, unworthy of body or even
eye contact -- hence the term "Untouchables".
The WCC delegation's Statement made at the same meeting referred to
his speech and said:
Some people may be surprised to hear the Dalits included
in a statement on Indigenous Peoples. But that is the
position taken by the World Council of Churches, and we
are delighted that representatives of the Scheduled
Tribes and Schedules Castes, making up the Dalit
community, are present in this forum."
In the meantime there have been further developments within the
WCC. One of the proposals made in the original paper circulated
among the Dalit community had been for a national meeting or
representatives from throughout the Dalit community. Further
discussions in India produced an initial list of people to join a
Planning Group for that national meeting. Its first meeting was in
August 1991. It set some priority action areas for the Dalit
Solidarity Programme and decided that, prior to the national
meeting, there should be a series of regional discussions; all
these designed to consider long-term strategies for the Dalit
movement and at what point and in what way the WCC could play a
role.
The WCC is made up of 334 member churches and associate bodies
throughout the world, described sometimes as a fellowship of over
500 million Christians. Some of the member churches are in India.
It is difficult for such a diverse fellowship to engage in concrete
action without preparation and consultation.
Clearly, we would have to develop a model of what that cooperation
with the Dalit community would be. Many such models of partnership
have been developed within the WCC. The model used for support of
the struggle against apartheid in South Africa is significant.
It consisted of convening a number of international consultations
at which church leaders from member churches, including South
Africa, shared insights and developed strategies of now to assist
in internationalizing the struggle against apartheid. It was at one
such consultation that the WCC member churches first resolved to
become active in the demand for economic sanctions to be imposed on
South Africa.
In that situation, because its staff were officially banned from
South Africa, the WCC developed a model of action which called for
international awareness-raising, direct opposition to governments
with links to South Africa and support of anti-apartheid campaigns.
As that model of partnership evolved it had some significant
characteristics. It challenged the churches inside South Africa
into bold stands against apartheid or, as they referred to it, "to
stand for the truth". It forced the churches outside South Africa
to decide what it meant to be an instrument of solidarity; how to
use their influence and resources in many countries in ways that
were helpful to the struggle within South Africa. And, finally, it
provided the means by which the churches and the liberation
movements established a partnership -- something which had been the
subject of considerable controversy within the WCC. But the regular
and historic meetings of South African leaders with church leaders
from around the world made new openings possible and allowed trust
to grow.
This model of partnership can be considered a successful one in
terms of the acknowledged, significant part the churches, within
and outside South Africa, played in the events leading to the
demise of apartheid.
It is probable that a different model will be developed in regard
to the WCC's relationship with the Dalit struggle, but some of the
characteristics may well be the same. But the WCC will first need
to receive advice from the Dalit community itself as to how it
thinks that model should be shaped, according to the long-term
strategies and priorities it has. It is for that reason that the
proposed national meeting of Dalit people should be as
representative as possible.
THE DALIT AS INDIGENOUS
In Sanskrit the root word 'dal', means to crack, to split open or
to break. Used as an adjective it means broken, torn asunder or
trampled. In Hebrew the root word is also 'dal', meaning low, weak,
poor.
Using these meanings, many people around the world, certainly
Indigenous People and the racially or economically oppressed, could
use the term 'Dalit' to describe themselves. But the term has been
used almost exclusively in India with reference to the Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The Hindi translation of the New Testament uses the word 'dalit'
for the expression 'oppressed' in Luke 4:18-19:
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to release the oppressed to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favour".
In the late 1880s, a social reformer named Jyotibe Phule used the
word 'Dalit' to describe the Outcastes and Untouchables as the
oppressed and broken victims of Hindu society. But it was not until
the 1970s that the young intellectuals of the Dalit Panther
Movement of Maharashtra used it as a reminder of their oppression.
In their definition they included Scheduled Castes and Tribes, neo-
Buddhists, workers, landless labourers, small farmers, women and
others who are exploited politically, economically and on the basis
of religion.
Throughout the 70s and 80s, the continued use of the term has
itself become a rallying point for the oppressed people of India.
They were determined no longer to accept the labels bestowed by
others, such as 'Scheduled Castes', 'Untouchables'; or even
Gandhi's 'Harijan'. 'Dalit' became the word which not only
described their situation as 'oppressed people', but was also a
positive affirmation of their own identity.
It is clear that the majority of those who come within the
description Dalit are the so-called Scheduled Castes as deemed
under article 341 of the Indian Constitution, as well as Christians
excluded from the Scheduled Castes by the 1936 Government Order
(Government of India [Scheduled Castes] Order 1936) which states
that "no Indian Christian... should be deemed a member of a
Scheduled Caste".
Are the Dalit people the Indigenous People of India?
To explain, one has to go first to a definition of 'Indigenous
People'. The working definition used by the United Nations Sub-
Commission on the Prevention and the Protection of Minorities is as
follows:
"Indigenous populations are composed of the existing
descendants of the people who inhabited the present
territory of a country wholly or partially at the time
when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin
arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame
them and by conquest, settlement or other means reduced
them to a non-dominant or colonial situation".
In other words, what distinguishes Indigenous Peoples from national
minorities and other racially oppressed groups is the fact that
they are the original (or first known) inhabitants of the land from
which they were displaced by an invading group.
It has been difficult to clarify the early history of the Scheduled
Castes and Tribes, the Dalit. As in so many other countries, the
history of India has been written by the victors, who have viewed
history to their own advantage. We who want to learn the history go
to the written historical accounts because we have not the time to
go to the tribal areas and sit for the great numbers of days
required to hear the oral history. Those written accounts reflect
the history of India as the other castes understand it.
So we have to turn to archaeological sources where the early life
of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes is adequately seen. There were
people living in India when the Aryans arrived in the 1500s B.C.
Indeed it is correct to refer to the Aryan arrival as "invasion"
because the people they defeated were then turned into slaves and
serfs.
There is clear archaeological evidence at Mohonjodaro and Harappa
(in diggings uncovered between 1921 and 1951) of the social
structure and customs of the people thousands of years before
Christ. The archaeologists also tell us that the final
disappearance of the people of Mohonjodara and Harappa coincided
with the coming of the Aryans in 1500 B.C.
The Indian scholar Suresh Narain Srivastava wrote in the 1980s:
"The pre-Dravidian settlers were the natives of India...
The Dravidians were the first to attack the Aborigines of
India ... they did not make Aborigines their own slaves.
After the Dravidians, another major attack was made by
the Aryans. As the victorious people, the Aryan invaders
looked down upon their opponents and called them the
Dasa-Dasyus and the Nishadis".
The original inhabitants were made slaves and brought into
Hinduism, being placed, of course, on the very lowest ring of the
social ladder. Those who did not accept the slave status were
driven away, usually into the forests, where they retained their
Aboriginal social customs and traditions.
It is a complicated history, but in simple terms it can be said
that those who were driven off, who managed to retain something of
their culture and identity, are the Tribals. The others were
enslaved -- becoming the Untouchables. They were kept outside the
four-fold varna system and were treated with contempt.
On this basis the Dalit, the Scheduled Tribes and the Scheduled
Castes can be acknowledged as the Indigenous People of India.
There is one distinguishing characteristic of Indigenous People: no
matter where they live or what their political social culture
belief may be, they view land as being the basis of their very
survival; for them it is on the land that they rest their
spirituality.
It is here that the situation of the Dalit is seen as its most
tragic. For, though they are Indigenous, they have lost their
contact with the land.
Indigenous Peoples all over the world have been dispossessed of
their land and they struggle to regain it, suffering spiritually
the longer the land is kept from them. But such was the oppression
of the Untouchables, removing them to the lowest of the low in the
society, inculcating in them an inferior view of themselves, that
they lost the concept of their ownership of land. They lost their
memory that once the land and its natural resources belonged to
them.
The WCC Position
At the VIIth Assembly of the WCC, held in Canberra in February
1991, a Statement on Indigenous Peoples and Land Rights was adopted
-- one of only three Public Issues statements adopted by the
Assembly. It included:
"The WCC should continue to work with Indigenous Peoples
to ensure that issues identified by them, their
communities and organizations, will be heard and acted
upon. We affirm the growing consciousness of the
Indigenous Peoples' struggle for freedom, including those
of the Dalits of India."
It is the Dalits who receive the direct reference -- certainly the
first time in WCC history they have been acknowledged in such a
way.
It is also pertinent to note the Statement made at the July 1991
United Nations Working on Indigenous Populations in Geneva. Mr
Yogesh Varhade, a Dalit now resident in Canada, said to that
distinguished company:
"I stand before you ... as one of India's 200 million
Indigenous Peoples who are referred to by my nation's
Constitution as 'people belonging to Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes'. By choice we have come to call
ourselves by the appellation "Dalits', a poetic term
which means 'the oppressed or the downtrodden' ...
Historical evidence points to the fact the Dalits were
the original inhabitants of the land which is known as
India... They were distinct people or nations, possessing
distinct cultures, laws and customs very much similar to
the Indigenous People of North America. Like them, the
Dalits too were overrun by foreign invaders, in this case
the Aryans from the West.
"These Aryan invaders imposed on our people not only
their political rule, but also a certain religio-social
hierarchical system which is part and parcel of the Hindu
civilization of India -- which is also known as casteism.
Our homesteads were plundered and confiscated by these
invaders, and we were relegated to the outskirts of our
towns and villages, where for thousands of years we have
lived huddled up, as outcastes and in abject poverty,
bonded for life to our alien masters. Today, we are still
conquered nations with distinct cultures, which India
calls Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
"In this pernicious and degrading system which persists
to this moment, our nations are considered inherently
inferior -- sub-human, polluting -- unworthy of body or
even eye contact -- hence the term 'Untouchables'."
That is a significant, perhaps even historic statement on Dalit
people, within a UN forum.
In its statement to the Working Group the WCC referred to the
statement made at the Canberra Assembly and then went on: "Some may
be surprised to hear them [the Dalit] included in a Statement on
Indigenous Peoples. But that is the position taken by the WCC and
we are delighted that representatives of the Scheduled Tribes and
Scheduled Castes, making up the Dalit community, are present in
this forum."
Today, one can point to Dalit self-determination with some
excitement. The staff of the Indian Social Institute in Delhi
report that there are over 5000 Dalit groups all over India. The
WCC itself has had contact in the last few years with
representatives of nearly 200 groups. Some are political, such as
the Dalit Sena, or the Republican Party of India, others are
educational, such as the Dalit Education Facilitation Centre in
Madras; there is the Christian Dalit Liberation Movement, the Dalit
Open University, based near Guntur in Andrah Pradesh; there are a
number of Dalit groups to support writers and poets, and there are
Dalit Student Groups. The Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary has its
own Integrative Dalit Liberation Movement, and there are now texts
of Dalit theology.
In 1988, a book entitled "Towards a Dalit Theology", edited by M.E.
Prabhakar, was published. In 1990, the Jesuit Theological
Secretariat in Madras and the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary in
Madurai jointly published "Emerging Dalit Theology". And then in
1991, "A Reader in Dalit theology", edited by Prof. Arvind Nirmal,
was launched at a ceremony at the Gurukul Lutheran Theological
College in Madras.
The Programme to Combat Racism of WCC -- now Ecumenical Action on
Racism -- has been responsible for the publication of the book
"International Law and the Dalits in India".
It is because of these many movements and the insistent claims for
support from the Dalit people that the World Council of Churches,
within its Unit on Justice, Service and Creation, has established
a Dalit Solidarity Programme. Not only as a response to the cries
for justice from these most condemned of Indian Society, but to
affirm that we recognize and respect their origins.