THE Tamil Nadu government introduced with much fanfare the samathuva mayanam (common graveyard) concept during the previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam regime with the proclaimed goal of ending all caste-based discrimination at burial-cum-cremation grounds. An official announcement was made that panchayats which set up samathuva mayanams would get an “incentive grant” of Rs.1 lakh for promoting communal harmony. A few panchayats had received the incentive when the government appeared to beat a hasty...

Promises action “to allay fears and insecurity Christians are experiencing” Chief Ministers will be asked to deal firmly with anti-Christian violence Promises to act on the Saldanha report on violence against minorities in Karnataka Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured a Christian delegation on Saturday that he was trying to evolve a consensus on granting Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims. He also said he would ask Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram...

Tensions run high within the Christian community in Thachur village, and the government has adopted a hands-off approach for now. THE wrinkles on S. Royappan's face are a result of advancing age, but the ridges and furrows in them tell a story of humiliation of this Dalit Christian, as also others like him. Royappan, 82, was a bonded labourer, or padiyaal, in Thachur village in Tamil Nadu's Kancheepuram district, but...

DALIT THEOLOGY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY — Discordant Voices, Discerning Pathways: Edited by Sathianathan Clarke, Deenbandhu Manchala, Philip Vinod Peacock; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 745. Although Christian missionaries of various denominations have been active in India for several centuries, the 1941 Census placed the number of Christians in colonial India at just 1.6 per cent of the population. This clearly indicates that the...

Many in India have embraced Christianity to escape the age-old caste oppression of the Hindu social order, but Christianity itself in some places is finding it difficult to shrug off the worst of caste discrimination. In the town of Trichy, situated in the heart of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a wall built across the Catholic cemetery clearly illustrates how caste-based prejudice persists. Those who converted to Christianity from the...