will receive the same legal rights as their non Christian counterparts, but said a new hearing in the landmark case will be held next week, officials confirmed.
The term Dalit is used for the so-called "untouchables" of India, up to 300-million people, who occupy the lowest place in the country’s ancient caste system of Hinduism.
Although the Indian government attempted to correct this situation by giving affirmative action positions to Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist Dalits in university placements and government jobs, there was no mention of ‘Christians’, said petitioners who want the Supreme Court to change the situation.
Currently "when Dalits become Christians, they lose these rights," added K.P. Yohannan, the president of Christian advocacy group Gospel For Asia (GFA), which supports native missionaries in India. The Supreme Court of India said it "adjourned till October 25, its hearings," the National Forum For Dalit Christian Rights, a major umbrella group of churches and other organizations, told the BosNewsLife New Delhi Bureau.
The Supreme Court announced it would hear the "the matter on merits," on October 25, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
In August, the Court postponed a discussion about extension of full civil rights to
Christian Dalits after state Attorney-General Milon Bannerjee asked for more time to study the matter. After the postponement, Christians following the case reportedly presented a petition to the government, asking for "urgent insertion of a discussion about their situation."
CHRISTIAN DALIT GROUPS
Among the petition’s signatories were the National Forum of Dalit Christian Rights as well as the Christian Dalits of Tamil Nadu, the All India Catholic Union, the All India Christian Council, Voice of Dalit International, and other Christian church and pro-Dalit organizations across the country.
The Supreme Court brushed aside suggestions by the Attorney-General that it should not intervene in matters of the President, saying it was "a crucial issue and we would examine the legal side of the issue on the basis of the rulings cited by the petitioner and the Attorney General," PTI reported.
Ahead of Tuesday’s court procedures, the Justice Mishra National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, which investigates human rights abuses, began its hearing into the Dalit Christian issue.
"On behalf of the Dalit Christian community in India, the delegation [of the National Forum For Dalit Christian Rights] urged the Commission to also hold hearings in Punjab and the Southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh where most of the Dalit Christians lived in penury and facing social ostracism," the group told BosNewsLife.
US CONCERNED ABOUT DALITS
The court case is closely followed in the United States where American lawmakers condemned this month the "abuses and humiliation" of India’s Dalits and tribal communities, including Christians, who they said were "victimized under the yoke of a shameful caste system."
"Converts to Christianity and Christian missionaries are particularly targeted, as violence against Christians often goes unpunished….many states have also adopted anti-conversion laws, in violation of India’s constitutional protection for religious freedom," said New Jersey Congressman Christopher Smith, a Republican who chairs the House International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Rights and International Operations in published remarks.
GFA President Yohannan said that if the Supreme Court rules "in the Dalits favor," they "will no longer fear publicly professing the faith in Christ and even more will commit to Him." However he warned there were not enough trained pastors and lay leaders to disciple them.
"It’s a huge challenge. The Lord has to do something very significant. And, this is one of the reasons we have increased the number of students in our Bible schools this year, knowing that things are happening and we need to get ready and this is a challenge," he added.
DALITS OPEN FOR GOSPEL
Yohannan claimed many of the hundreds of millions of Dalits were open for the Christian Gospel, although he did not give estimates. "Jesus Himself said these things can only go with fasting and prayer. We are not dealing with just one demon-possessed person; we are dealing with millions upon millions in the valley of decision, not knowing what to do, and Satanic forces want to take them all to hell." He said his had urged GFA supporters to pray and fast Tuesday, October 18 "to cry out to God on behalf of [these] people…"
Human rights watchers also hope a Supreme Court ruling will further pressure society to observe the constitution which formally eliminated the caste system in India in 1950, amid reports of nationwide abuse. "Even in the recent violence in Gohana Village in Haryana near New Delhi, three Christian Dalit families were victims of the upper caste violence together with their Hindu brethren," said the National Forum For Dalit Christians.
Last month The Times of India newspaper reported that a Dalit Hindu man was chained for over two years to the ground floor balcony of his house after fellow villagers declared him insane. Upendra Naik, 32, was declared mentally unsound in July 2003 after villagers said he stole a trident from a temple in their village, near the town of Kendrapara in the eastern state of Orissa, in a case which underscored reports of widespread discrimination of both Christian and Hindu Dalits.
In May, a government school in impoverished Bihar state reportedly stopped serving lunch to its students because Dalit women were cooking the desserts, before two Yadavs, a cow-herd caste, objected. (With BosNewsLife Research and BosNewsLife News Center).
