|
|
The
Hitavada, Nagpur, Sunday, August 21, 2005
Church releases agenda for liberation of Dalits
By Staff Reporter
Going beyond the usual conversion approach, the Church in India has to address itself to the issue of emancipation of 200 million Dalits if it were to survive and live to its pre-ordained purpose, exhorted K. Rajaratnam, Chairman of National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) Task Force on Dalit, on Saturday.
Rajaratnam
was delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of the three-day
National Methodology Workshop on Congregational Empowerment for Dalit Liberation
at the Center for Human Potential Development, NCCI General Secretary Bishop
D.K. Sahu, Dr. Augustine Jaikumar and Bishop L.G. Rao of UELCI, and Rev. Dr.
Chandrapaul Martin were seated on the dias.
The workshop is organized by the NCCI in collaboration with Church of South India (CSI), Church of North India (CNI), United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI) and Integrated Rural Development of Weaker Sections in India (IRDWSI).
Addressing a gathering of selected representatives of various congregations, Rajaratnam said that this new agenda adopted by the church envisages going to the non-members of the church. Blaming the church for not addressing the problems of 200 million Dalits in India so far, the noted Christian scholar said, "we need to go outside the Church."
The new agenda has been approved by the World Theology Meet held in Chennai in which General Secretary of World Council of Churches was also present, said Rajaratnam, who drafted the new agenda of Dalit Liberation.
Rajaratnam said that the church has a mandate of the Christ to set at liberty the oppressed. But the congregations must be empowered to translate that mandate into reality. He said that the government, police, judiciary and bureaucracy were not friends with the Dalits as they only attempted to thwart justice to them. Church was the only institution that can go to the rescue of Dalits in India, he proclaimed. In doing so the Church should not seek any reward in the form of conversion, he said. Theologically the Church was the only one which was equipped to help the people in want of emancipation.
NCCI General Secretary Bishop D.K. Sahu said that the local congregation has to come out of its shell and identify itself with the full implications of the notion of church as a local congregation called to serve in a particular context. Quoting M.E. Prabhakar, Sahu said that Indian Christian Dalits suffered four-fold alienation viz from the State, from other Dalits who look at them with disfavour, the so-called upper caste Christians treat Dalit Christians contemptuously and the Dalit Christians who were at odds with themselves being divided on sub-caste, regional or linguistic basis.
Nearly 100 delegates from all over the country representing all the Protestant and Orthodox Churches in India are participating. Representatives and leaders of some 50 local congregations would be exposed to the challenges of liberation and equipped with the methodology of liberation during the workshop.
The Hitavada, Nagpur, Tuesday, August 23, 2005
'Dalit Liberation's new agenda will revolutionise Church's approach'
By Virag Pachpore
The new agenda of Dalit Liberation is amazingly radical in the sense that it envisages direct participation of the church ministry. It will revolutionise the Church and its approach, asserted Dr. K. Rajaratnam, Chairman of the Task Force on Dalits set up by the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI).
In an exclusive interview with The Hitavada on Sunday evening at the CHPD lawns, Dr. Rajaratnam, who is the architect of this new agenda, asserted that the new liberation theology was a breakthrough in emancipation of Dalits from oppression and exploitation. "Its impact will be visible as we implement this new agenda", he clarified.
Dr. Rajaratnam, who is also Director of Gurukul Lutheran Theological College, Chennai and a noted Christian Theologian, said that the new agenda does not concentrate on conversion. "All our activities were conversion-oriented up till now which could not yield the results as per our expectations", he said. Therefore, "we have decided to liberate the Dalits without converting them to Christianity", he said with uncharacteristic candour. EXCLUSIVE "But that does not mean we are denying them right to convert", the octogenarian, frail looking theologian hastened to add, "If they want to join the way of Christ, we will not stop them, but we will not force them to convert."
Earlier, some isolated experiments were conducted but they could not bring about the desired change in the social status of the Dalits, Dr. Rajaratnam said. The new agenda will be implemented through selected 50-odd congregations and they will be properly networked to each other to facilitate free flow of information, he added. In implementing this new theology the Church will have to change its conservative mindset first.
Clarifying he said that this implies re-reading and re-interpreting the Bible in the Indian cultural context and from the perspective of the oppressed, re-write the liturgy, and re-formulate the prayers. This is a daunting task as far as the mental make-up of the Churches in India is concerned, Dr. Rajaratnam conceded.
Some 60 theologians in India have been contacted to accomplish this new responsibility of interpreting the Bible from the perspective of the oppressed, he said. When his attention was drawn towards the discrimination meted out to converted Dalits within the Church, Dr. Rajaratnam confessed that in the Indian context Christianity has not impacted the caste syndrome. However, there is no hatred and opposition within the Church has been brought down. Now Dalits are becoming Bishops in the Roman Catholic Churches, he said.
"The new agenda would mitigate the discrimination and caste prejudices when we go to the non-members among the Dalits. Through the pilot congregations we will make efforts to sink caste differences", he assured. Commenting on the demand for a separate homeland for the Dalits in India raised on the platform of the Church some years ago, the noted theologian categorically said, "Dalitsthan is now part of history. That was the intellectual formulation of some radical individuals. It is now out of question."
Clarifying his position on conversion Dr. Rajaratnam said, "I do not oppose conversion. However, there are some conservatives who still harbour the 18th century evangelical mindset. But I feel that we must reach the un-reached and the best way to do this is through dialogue. You have got to know and accept the truth in other religions also".
When it was pointed out to him that the present Pope had opposed the pronouncement of the world religious council about equality of all religions, Dr. Rajaratnam said, "nobody accepts the Pope's pronouncement. He even went on to say that the Vatican does not accept other than Roman Catholic churches as part of the Truth".
This position is not acceptable to us, Dr. Rajaratnam asserted. Coming back to the new theology, he claimed, "this is the Indian version of Liberation Theology. This is the first Indian theology where there is no place for Marxism unlike the Latin American model of liberation of theology".
"There is no danger of Dalits getting uprooted or going away from their roots due to the application of this new liberation programme", he asserted. Dr. Rajaratnam said that he supported the idea of Indian Church. "I have been promoting the idea and calling for Churches to become self-reliant", he said.