educational status" of the country’s Christian community amid concern about poverty and reported persecution of many Christians, BosNewsLife learned Wednesday, August 3.
The All India Catholic Union (AICU) and the All India Christian Council (AICC) made the plea after the government invited the general public in a media campaign to contribute to a similar report on Muslims in India.
"I pray that you expand the terms of reference of your [Prime Minister’s High Level Committee] to include all Christians, or at least the Dalit Christians in your survey," said John Dayal, national president of the AICU and secretary general of the AICC.
He made the comments in a letter to Justice Rajendra Sachchar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Committee and former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. In India’s Hindu dominated caste society, Dalits are often oppressed as they are seen as "untouchable" and considered to be below anyone else, human rights watchers say.
Dalit Christians are estimated to comprise at least 60 percent of the 25-million Christians in India. They reportedly make up 75 per cent of Christians in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab.
NO ENTERPRENEURS
Yet "the Christian community does not have an entrepreneur class, nor does it have an artisan class of people who could be self employed”, claimed Dayal in the letter obtained by the BosNewsLife New Delhi Bureau.
In addition, he said, India’s Christian urban population "is entirely in the service sector, grossly under employed, and the rural population, mostly Dalit, is landless peasantry, pauperized landless labor" while " others [are] dependent on seasonal and inadequate employment."
That is why "the honorable prime minister and the Union Government [should] either expand your commission to include Christians or to set up a separate and similar committee to study the economic situation of Christians," he wrote Justice Sachar.
COMPREHENSIVE STUDY
"A comprehensive study of the economic disempowerment of the Christian community would be en eye opener to us all, including the government and the leadership of the Churches", Dayal added.
The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, set up the seven-member Committee in April this year, saying a lack of authentic information about the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community "was coming in the way of planning, formulating and implementing specific interventions, policies and programs" to address issues related to the social "backwardness" of that group.
The Committee will look at the demographic spread of Muslims as well as the community’s record of literacy, dropout, and maternal mortality and infant mortality rates. It will also investigate Muslims’ relative share in public and private sector employment, and whether they have adequate access to education, health services, municipal infrastructure, bank credits and other services provided by the government and the public sector.
The Committee has been asked to submit its report by June 2006. In its election campaign in May last year, the ruling United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress Party pledged that efforts would be made for "the welfare of socially and economically backward sections" among religious and linguistic minorities.
