India's top court to hear appeal to end Dalit oppression in parish

(OSV News) -- In what is billed as a first in history, India's Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal seeking to end discrimination against socially poor Dalit Catholics in a parish in southern India.

The case came to the nation's top court after the High Court of the Tamil Nadu state dismissed a petition of some Catholics of Kottapalayam parish in the Diocese of Kumbakonam seeking its intervention to end the alleged caste-based discrimination in the parish.

The Madurai bench of the state High Court dismissed the petition, saying the appeal was "not only superfluous" but also the court had no "jurisdiction" over the issue.

The petition wanted the court to order an end to discriminatory practices in the parish, which included maintaining two cemeteries in the parish -- one for the upper caste people and the other for Dalit people -- among several other such practices.

The petitioners challenged the state court's dismissal in the Supreme Court, which, following a preliminary hearing Feb. 21, accepted the case for hearing and ordered to seek responses from the respondents.

The respondents include 17 individuals and offices, among them heads of regional and national bishops' forums, the local bishop, the archbishop, and district and state officials of departments meant to protect the interests of people of lower caste origin.

Lawyer Franklin Caesar Thomas, who appeared for the petitioners, said the Supreme Court's accepting a petition of Dalit Catholics against discrimination within the church is a "first in the history of India."

Thomas said Dalit Catholics in the Diocese of Kumbakonam face inhuman caste-based discrimination, including "untouchability and aggression" from the high caste community.

The petitioners in the appeal said they had sought the help of district and state authorities to end the practice but "no proper or complete action was taken by any of the authorities."

Thomas told UCA News Feb. 24 that the parish has 150 Dalit Catholic families, but the parish does not take their contributions nor involve them in church activities and celebrations.

Thomas said the upper caste believe Dalit Catholics' contributions could "pollute them and their entire celebrations."

High caste families in the parish have set apart 129,200 square feet of land as their cemetery, while the Dalit Catholics were given 8,800 square feet as a cemetery, he added.

However, a Catholic leader who did not wish to be named told UCA News that the "Dalit Christian community in Tamil Nadu or other states continue to face severe discrimination."

Dalits, or untouchables, are the lowest caste within Hindu society. Huge numbers of Dalits have converted to Christianity and Islam over the decades, though in reality, the religions offer limited protection from societal prejudice.

Commentator Virgina Saldanha said that while it's "heartening to know that India’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by some Dalit Catholics," on the other hand, "it is shocking that these poor Dalit Catholics had to approach the courts ... to give them their rights against caste discrimination, which is enshrined in the Indian Constitution and also goes against the very basic teaching of Catholicism."

The word Dalit means "trampled upon" in Sanskrit and refers to all groups once considered untouchable and outside the four-tier Hindu caste system. Government data shows 201 million of India's 1.2 billion people belong to the socially deprived.

Some 60% of India's 25 million Christians also come from Dalit and tribal origin.

"Once baptized in Christ, people join the family of the Church and become one with all the People of God. They can no longer be identified or discriminated against by their caste, color, race, or gender," Saldanha said.