Question: I wanted to ask if it would be better not to use the word conversion at all in general conversations so that the non-believers get as to what the truth of a Believer is. But I framed my question in a different way. And a lot of Messages poured in. It is good to learn different perspectives. But my questions will always be from the actual action/communication that needs to happen in a so-called Hindu world. We need to be responsible.
My response: Generally, I don’t read group messages as there are lots of messages poured in simultaneously. I don’t have much time to read and reflect on them. So you send your questions separately. Above all, in any group message each one share her view based on her ideology, which others need not accept. But what Mukti Veda talks about is a crucial one for me, however accepting the fact that even this ‘what Mukti Veda talks’ is subjected to our personal interpretation. That is why I generally don’t involve much in any group discussion. I have no objection if you want to share this with others.
Question: The act of conversion like water baptism. So conversion from Hindu to Christian as the Hindus sees and understands it. A… wrote this in one of his responses: ‘I would be interested to know what would be R….’s analysis on the movement since Swamiji’s “reconversion’ and now.
The above are the questions and the answers that I wrote which I received from a Hindu bhakta. Already I wrote one article called ‘Conversion is the Confusion’ in response to another article by an Evangelical leader called ‘A Confusion called Conversion’. According to Hindus, Christian conversion is nothing but deserting one’s birth community/society and joining another sociological community called Christianity. A lot is written about it and I need not repeat them here. I am not doing any ‘reconversion’. I don’t even like the word ‘conversion’. I respect those who want to change their religion as our Constitution allows it. But based on my personal experience and limited understanding on this subject by reading so many books and articles, there is no sanction in Mukti Veda for such sociological conversion in the name of Christian religion. So I want to help those who struggle (like me) to understand that a Hindu need not change her community in order to follow the Lord Mukti Nath. As far as I know Hinduism is not a religion. At the same time, I don’t want to deny the fact that there are religious aspects in Hinduism. All the modern definitions about Hinduism as a way of life, civilization, culture, view etc. cannot give apt definition to Hinduism. Already I attempted to share my views about this in the book Understanding Hinduism. This is what I wrote in Introduction:
Hinduism is a subject which evades everyone’s full comprehension. Even the professing Hindu, whether considering himself “popular” or “philosophical”, is not in a position to explain his faith in clear-cut terms … .If this is true of a professing Hindu, how much more difficult it is for any non-Hindu to understand Hinduism. (p. 1) [Bharati, 2019]
And in the conclusion, I wrote:
The only proper way to understand this Sanatana dharma is to understand the people and their culture and traditions, even to some extent their nation(alism). Some may say that, “Hindu is not synonymous with India” (India Mystica 2000, From the Editor, pg. 6). This is true if “Hindu” means only a particular faith. But as long as it remain as “dharma” with its deeps roots in Indian culture and geography, it will be difficult to distinguish between an “Indian” and a “Hindu” (though we respect the freedom of those who do not want to call themselves “Hindu”, yet feel “Indian”). Such an understanding alone will help us to live peacefully, respecting all faiths which find this land as their home. Only this understanding will promote the contribution of all faiths to secular values which are the needed antidote for conflicts related to fundamentalism and communalism. After all, religion is of the people, for the people and by the people. This is what the Sanatana dharma also believes and propagates. If this is understood, Hinduism will be within the reach of everyone’s comprehension. (ibid. p. 376)
After I have written my book, I got further help to understand this phenomenon called Hinduism. Though bit long I would like to quote in length from Devadevan (2016), as it present a scholarly perspective to my layman’s perspective:
…Raja Rammohun Roy is credited with the use of the word ‘Hinduism’ for the first time. Roy used the word in one of his writings in 1816, and again, in 1817. {Lorenzen, 3} It came into circulation almost immediately. At least one use of the word is known from 1818, and one from 1820, the latter in the Asiatik Researches. {Ibid.}….—p. 1
…Those who identified themselves as practicing Hindus were few in number. As the latter half of the nineteenth century progressed, literate men and women in the leading metropolises of India were beginning, in increasing numbers, to speak of a religion called Hinduism to which they belonged. By the turn of the century, it had evolved into one of the most compelling historical realities of our times. So captivating was its impact that when the first World’s Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago in 1893, its organizers identified Hinduism as one of the religions to be offered a platform….—p. 2
…John Stratton Hawley’s observation that Hinduism “is a notoriously illegitimate child”. {Hawley, 1991, pp. 20-34} It is worth quoting Hawley at some length as it exemplifies this strand of constructionism. (p.2)
Hinduism—the word, and perhaps the reality too—was born in the 19th century, a notoriously illegitimate child. The father was middle-class and British, and the mother, of course, was India. The circumstances of the conception are not altogether clear. One heard of the “goodly habits and observances of Hindooism” in a Bengali-English grammar written in 1829, and the Reverend William Tennant had spoken of “the Hindoo system” in a book on Indian manners and history written at the beginning of the century. Yet it was not until the inexpensive handbook Hinduism was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1877 that the term came into general English usage.${Hawley 1991: 20-21}—pp. 2-3
…The ‘illegitimate child’ thesis of the constructionists seems to be suggesting that other religions like Islam and Christianity were not constructed, or that the construction would have been legitimate had it happened several centuries before the coming of the British (or the Muslims). It also naively presumes that a religion like Hinduism can be constructed with the help of a body of writings produced in the nineteenth century by the British, or by Indian reformers, or by counter-manoeuvres like the one the Samacar Candrika has represented. In other words, it bestows undue determinism and autonomy on discourse. If it was discourse that created Hinduism, all we would need in order to undo it in our day in a counter-discourse. The world, unfortunately, is ontological, not discursively constituted, as the present study will demonstrate.—p.7
The essentialist approach of the constructionists and the primordialists takes religion as an always-already formed entity, with an essential core of its own. Changes caused by political, economic, and other factors are of course acknowledged and extensively discussed. That most aspects of religion, ranging from the institutional to the ritual, are subjected to transformation is also accepted. Even so, the insistence that there is an identifiable set of features inherent in a religion tends to essentialize the phenomenon. Essentialism, per se, is by no means undesirable. In fact, the identification of common traits, and their classification and categorization, constitutes one of the methods through which information is processed for the purpose of knowledge production. Essentialism is central to this mode of information processing. It is through this imperative that the structuring of knowledge, and the process of conceptualization through definitions and taxonomies, become possible. Thus, essentialism is characteristic of at least some forms of knowledge production. The problem with it begins to manifest when the approach is generalized in order to (p. 7) essentialize everything. This is also true of the urge to theorize& that informs so much of our contemporary academic pursuits.—pp. 7-8
Having said this I would like to share some further reflection on this topic in the following brainstorm.
Conversion Questions
You should avoid using the word ‘non-believer’. Why should one compare other’s faith with one’s faith? Does a Hindu call a Christian a non-believer or non-Hindu? This kind of term is wrongly used only by the Christians. A Hindu or a Muslim is not a non-Christian but a Hindu or a Muslim. Similarly, calling the followers of other religions other than Hinduism as ‘non-Hindu’ is also wrong. But I write for the sake of communication but not with any intention to hurt. Similarly, no one is a non-believer. Everyone has faith in her own religion or god or in any ideology like communism. So everyone is a believer. Even an atheist is a believer in her atheism. Why we should reduce ‘belief’ only with God or Gods.
Conversion is a big subject. Conversion from which and what is conversion? Most of the time, those debates on Conversion are only a ‘REACTION’ than a sober ‘RESPONSE’ based on their faith and proper understanding of the Scripture—in our case Mukti Veda. Does the word ‘conversion’ is in Mukti Veda? If it is there in what sense it is used. [Pennington, 2014]
Regarding the conversion of the so-called tribes, OBC and ST and SC, it is multi-dimensional and has a long mission history. Giving any one kind of response based on one’s experience or one perspective won’t address the issue. A lot is said and written about it. At least in India Christian conversion is a sociological issue and not merely a religious or spiritual or even an issue of nationalism. Mukti Veda never talks about such conversion. Sevanand (Paul) asked a Jew to remain a Jew and follow the Lord. Similarly, a Gentile (even this very word itself is wrong, as I don’t want to use non-Jew I use it) to remain as she is and follow the Lord. He never asked them to change their social identity as a Jew or a Gentile.
As an answer to your short question, which deserves a long chapter or even a separate book, is this: A HINDU IS A MEMBER OF A PARTICULAR COMMUNITY, IRRESPECTIVE OF HER FAITH. HER IDENTITY IS BASED ON HER BIRTH IN A (CASTE) FAMILY AND NOT BASED ON HER PERSONAL FAITH IN ANY GOD OR DOCTRINES. IN THIS SENSE EVEN AN ATHEIST COULD BE CALLED AS A HINDU. As far as I know, without knowing what all our CONSTITUTION says on this subject, it never limits a Hindu identity based on her faith.
This could be a simple and superficial statement based on my ideology. Anyone could refute this statement with a counter argument even quoting from scholars (that too from the West who only have some bookish knowledge about Hinduism as an outsider).
At least in India–A CHRISTIAN IS A MEMBER OF A PARTICULAR DENOMINATIONATIONAL CHURCH OR BIRTH IN A CHRISTIAN FAMILY—EVEN WITHOUT HAVING ANY PERSONAL FAITH AND COMMITMENT TO THE LORD.
With this kind of sociological identity ‘conversion’ or ‘reconversion’ is very difficult to define based on Mukti Veda. And anyone who wants to develop any missiological (mission theology) on conversion has to deal with it. Considering the vast nature of Indian society, without having any proper social-anthropological perspective, trying to form any uniform ‘missiology’ will expose one’s shallow understanding of this issue. So, if one wants to develop any missiology on conversion, she has to do it separately based on each community and society.
Let me use one example for this. I never heard about any ‘Dalit theology’ outside India. If all the Christians are members of the body of the Lord and belong to the universal church, then why do the Dalits need any separate theology in their name?
…a group of concerned Christians and sympathizers run a Centre of Dalit/Subaltern Studies, near Dwarka, New Delhi, with numerous activities and extensive contacts with other parts of the country. At the moment, it is engaged in publishing the first Dalit commentary of the Bible, of which the New Testament is already available and the Old Testament is in active preparation….[Sauch, S.J 2014, p. 328]
This shows the demand of the Indian social system. And if a Dalit needs a separate theology, then why not then a separate theology for ST, SC, Brahmin, Reddy, Kamma, Yadava, Nadar etc.? And those who support such Dalit theology considering their need, can they oppose other such theology which I just mentioned which they want to create to address the need of their own community and Society? The CSI (Church of South India) came into existence after merging a few denominations in South India, including the Anglican Church. But when a Dalit was appointed as the Bishop in one diocese, not accepting it, several Nadar Christian revolted against it and started a separate Anglican Church again. Note that Nadars were also considered as a backward community in Tamil Nādu. But they now claim Kshatriya status and even some claim that they were actually Brahmins but fell back by the cunning strategy of other castes. [One can find lots of such debates in Tamil on YouTube]@ I don’t want to enter into the debate on what they have done is right or wrong. I strongly support the demands of Dalit theology separately for them. All the superficial reform done in the mainline churches never addressed their grievances. Realizing this, after long contemplation and struggle, they come up with a separate Dalit Theology to address their issues and need which several main line churches brushed under their carpet of theology and doctrine in order to preserve the so called artificial ORGANIZATIONAL’ unity as the body of the Lord.
So what is applicable to this issue in theology is also applicable in missiology.
The following song by a Kerala Dalit Convert will highlight this point clearly”
…Yohannan {John} sang:
Like orphans we travelled
Through the peripheries of Hinduism.
Like orphans we travelled
Through the peripheries of Christianity.
Hindus did not include us
Christians did not include us. {Poikayil Sree Kumara Gurudeva Geethangal (Eraviperoor: PRDS [Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha] Publication, 1996), p.222} [Mohan 2015, p. 378]
You might wonder why I only talk here about Dalit conversion and Dalit theology. First, I take it as an example to highlight how complex conversion is in India. Next is that to talk about conversion among tribes we need to approach that issue entirely from a different perspective. Third is, ‘The correct description of the religious reality, at least as in Madras City, is not that Christianity is a Harijan religion but a Harijan church’, says Dr. Hoefer. {Hoefer, 1991, p. 96}.
(Hoefer, 1991, p. 96)What he says about Chennai is a reality in most part of India as majority of the Christians are from Dalit community.% Not only conversion is a sociological issue, but even the churches are also divided based on caste line in India apart from doctrinal division. The social merits of the caste system are proved by the fact that even those who rejected Hinduism through their conversion to other faiths still hold to allegiances and practices of their own social (caste) groups. Caste-based churches are a common feature in South India. Hoefer gives an example of this, telling the story of a Nadar Christian student who was asked whether he would prefer a non-Christian Nadar wife or a non-Nadar Christian wife, with the boy replying immediately, “A Nadar wife, of course” (ibid. 55). A lot is written about the dissent within the (Catholic) church regarding the discrimination even in ordination among the priests based on caste. Considering all these factors, conversion will always remain confusing in India. Any clear point needs only a few words to explain, but confusion needs several pages or even volumes to expose it.
I say this not with any condescending spirit or hegemonic attitude about the Church or Christian conversion. In fact, I am the one who defends their right to uphold their rights and tradition as they like in their church. That is why when any so-called high caste convert lament that the church is not understanding their (sociological) problem or address it, I say that it is not their (church) problem. What I further say is this:
Why should the church expect to understand your problem when they already have so many problems to deal with within their church? Why should they change their tradition, culture, worshipping pattern in order to accommodate one or few converts from the so called high caste who feel like fish out of water there. They have every right to preserve their needs and tradition. If you want to become a Christian convert, then try to learn to adjust with them. And if you feel that you cannot do that, then don’t disturb them. But you have no right to expect the whole congregation or church to change to accommodate your needs and (social, cultural) sensitivities. You try to form your own small group with likeminded bhaktas outside denomination church—even with one or two and begin to exercise your bhakti in everyday life as the follower of the Lord as a Hindu. Of course, there will come several challenges. And you cannot avoid it. By staying outside the church and trying to live as a Hindu bhakta of the Lord, you have to face only your problems within your family and community. By joining any church, you have to face problems back in your home, family, community and society AS A CHRISTIAN CONVERT. Inside the church AS A NEW “HINDU” CONVERT. You might be demanding or expecting too much to accommodate your needs and sensibilities, for which they are not prepared or equipped. However hostile your home, family and society might be, still it is your home. But initially however friendly your church might be, still it is your neighbor. A HOSTILE HOME IS BETTER THAN A SUSPECTING BUT FRIENDLY NEIGHBOR.
This is part of my Bhakti Theology (see my blog more on this), which I try to promote among few Hindu bhaktas who are scattered in various parts of India and globe. What I say to the Hindu bhaktas is also applicable to the followers of the Lord in every other religious group other than Christian—sometimes even to them.
Finally, it is worth noting what Pennington says about ‘The {Christian} Barrier of Conversion’ in his path breaking book where he talks about various ‘CHRISTIAN BARRIERS TO JESUS: Conversations and Questions from the Indian Context, 2017, p. 109:
The late Bishop Azariah asserted, “We (i.e. many missionaries, Indian Christians, and myself) are convinced that Christianity has always stood for conversion, and for changing people from one society to another….This inevitably means breaking with the old fellowship and joining a new fellowship” (cited in Kim, 2013, 18; emphasis mine). With those words, he articulated a common understanding that cultural conversion is a Christian obligation.
Contrast that, though, with the following from Christian leader and thinker, Ralph Winter:
First, let’s be done with the word “conversion.” In Standard English that word usually means merely an outward change, a change of culture, clothing, diet—it means to proselytize. Well the NT very clearly opposes any proselytizing as essential to salvation. Logically, then, if I were asked at the border of______“Are you here to convert________?” The most accurate answer I could give would be, “The Bible instructs me not to proselytize anyone at any time”…Conversion is part of our Evangelical dialect, but we ought to lay it aside if we want to make sense to outsiders. (Winter, 38)
It is worth reading the entire chapter about the (Christian) barrier of conversion from Pennington (pp.109-136). And to understand the so many other Christian Barriers to Jesus better you read the entire book.
Sorry for a long response for your short but thought provoking question. In the appendix, I am giving extensive notes from various scholars on theology, missiology, and Socio-anthropology. I know that these kinds of selective notes won’t serve anyone’s purpose. However, those who want to seriously address such a missiological issue have to read well before propagating any kind of their own ideology in haste.
Db
19-2-2020
Notes
$ Other positions are more cautions; thus, Christopher John Fuller writes:
“Hinduism” as a term for that indigenous religion, became current in English in the early nineteenth century and was coined to label an “ism” that was itself partly a product of western orientalist thought, which (mis)constructed Hinduism on the model of occidental religions, particularly Christianity….That linguistic development significantly reflects the impact of modern Hindu reformist thought and the Hindus’ own search for an identifiable, unitary system of religious belief and practice. Nonetheless, “Hinduism” does translate any premodern Indian word without serious semantic distortion, and it still does not correspond to any concept or category that belongs to the thinking of a large proportion of the ordinary people….Yet that is not a decisive objection against employment of the term…That “Hinduism” is not a traditional, indigenous category, concept, or “cultural reality”—albeit an important negative fact—in no way nullifies an analysis that demonstrates that Hinduism is a relatively coherent and distinctive religious system founded on common structures of relationships. {The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India, revised and expanded edition. Princeton. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004, 10}
& Today, it is more-or-less an accepted maxim that theorizing is the only way of producing valid knowledge about the human world. The validity of the maxim itself has never been tested. It is assumed, for no sustainable reason, that knowledge production is contingent upon the production of theory. “Theories,” according to one definition, “are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’.”{Popper, Karl. 2002 [1950]. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge, 2002, 37}39 It has “promised the relief of new problems and new interests.”{Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London and New York: Verso, 1991: 182}40 These are sober views, more in the nature of an apology rather than an argument for theory. Less temperate views, more in the nature of an apology rather than an argument for theory. Less temperate views exist. One of them, for instance, tells us that a theory enables us to “decide whether or not some newly discovered entity belongs to its domain”, and to assign domains through arbitration when such decision-making involves a conflict.{Balagangadhara, S. N. 1994. The Heathen in His Blindness: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion, Leiden: Brill, 2002: 246}41 Well? This means that theory is all about distinguishing an apple from an orange, an aircraft from a submarine, a Hindu from a Muslim, a Brahmin from a Dalit. Theory, then, is all about segregation, placing objects of inquiry in distinct, unique, and well-demarcated domains, where there are no possibilities of overlaps, exchanges, similarities, or spillovers of any kind. Ensuring distinction and difference in their pristine forms is what this approach to theory is aimed at.
The urge to theorize every object of inquiry is in fact driven by the desire to endow everything with distinct and unalterable attributes of its own. It is a universal desire to particularize, to differentiate, to break up, and dismantle, and to assign to every object its own space or domain. When brought to the level of human beings, the message it sends out is too unambiguous to be missed. There are no shared experiences or shared histories, no common hopes and dreams, no common destinies either, no possibilities of realization, transformation, forgiveness, or redemption. It affirms and celebrates a life of self-assertion and chauvinism that nurtures indifference—if not intolerance and hatred—for the rest of the world. […] (p.9)
We are not suggesting that difference is evil or that there are no differences in the world. The existence of difference is what necessitates theory in the first place. But the belief that theory alone can make knowledge possible results in either affirming differences where they may not really exist, or in undermining the presence or possibility of similarities, exchanges, interfaces, and overlaps between different objects. A theory of the market, as different from a theory of language or a theory of renunciation is understandable. But a theory of the market, distinct from a theory of money, commodity, trade, and inflation, can only offer us a tunnel vision of the market.
The moral of the above discussion is plain and simple: the production of knowledge is not at the mercy of theory. Theorizing as an academic enterprise has its palpable limits. Its possibilities are not endless or extendable to every object of inquiry. At the same time, these limits by no means exhaust the possibility of generating valid knowledge about the human world. Inquiries that do not culminate in a theory can be as fruitful, or even more meaningful, than the ones that do. The desire to theorize everything is not found to be springing from an examination of the possibility or otherwise of theorizing. It is an a priori position, governed by the processes of reification in the capitalist world of generalized commodity production. Its logic of uniqueness, distinction, and difference is also the one that informs the marketing of cars, cellphones, chocolates, and cigarettes on the one hand, and the passions that drive the rhetoric of ethnicities, religious fundamentalism, and clash of civilizations an {as?}the other.—Devadevan, 2016, pp. 8-9
@…There were four Brahmin Brothers whom God ordered to remove a dead cow from a field. Only one, Jhaumpra, agreed to do so on the condition that God would be merciful to him and to his descendants at the time of their death. He also asked his brothers to restore him to their company after he had completed the job; this they agreed to do after four days. However, when Jhaumpra had removed the cow, they changed their minds, saying that they would restore him only after four ages had passed. Thus the Chuhras were actually high caste people who had been unjustly outcast because of their willingness to do what God has commanded; they therefore rejected the notion that their present place at the bottom of the caste hierarchy was somehow divinely ordained….—ibid. Christian Conversion in the Punjab: What has Changed? John C.B. Webster. Pp. 351-380, in, Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke, Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, and Meanings, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, [2003] Second impression Oxford India Paperbacks, 2008.p. 354
%…In short, the Dalit majority within the north Indian churches was making its voice heard and was beginning to affect the churches’ ministry and mission….— John C.B. Webster, Social History of Christianity: North-west India Since 1800, New Delhi, Oxford, 2007, p. 342
See Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian society 1700-1900, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (1989), First Indian Edition, 1992 for the internal fight among the Catholic church based on caste division among Shanars (present Nadar) and Vellalas (land owning caste) and Dalits in the church in 19th and 20th centuries, specifically pp. 433-44
…The legacy of the missions to the church leaders of independent Pakistan and India was heavily institutional and elitist. It was several decades after independence that the churches of South Asia would make a sustained attempt to come to terms with their history as “Dalit Christians.”70— Jeffrey Cox, Imperial Fault Lines, California, Stanford University Press, 2002,p. 269
70 John C. B. Webster, The Dalit Christians: A History (Delhi: Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1992); James Massey, Dalits in India: Religion as a Source of Bondage or Liberation with Special Reference to Christians (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors and ISPCK, 1995)
Reference:
Dayanand Bharati, Understanding Hinduism, (second Revised edition), New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal,2019
Devadevan, Manu V. A Prehistory of Hinduism, Berlin, De Gruyter Open Ltd, 2016
Gispert-Sauch, S.J Dissent within the Catholic Church in Late Colonial Bengal.. pp. 321-329, in, Vijaya Ramaswamy, (ed.) Devotion and Dissent in Indian History, New Delhi, Foundation Books, 2014,
Hoefer, Herbert E. Churchless Christianity. Madras: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, 1991
John Stratton Hawley , “Naming Hinduism”. Wilson Quarterly, 15 (3),
Kim, Sebastian C. H. 2005. “Hindutva, Secular India, and the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee: 1954-1957.” In Nationalism and Hindutva: A Christian Response: Papers from the 10th CMS Consultation, edited by Mark T. B. Laing, 108-144. Delhi, India: CMS/UBS(ISPCK} 2013,
Lorenzen, David N. Who Invented Hinduism: Essays on Religion in History, New Delhi: Yoda Press. 2002,
Mohan ,Sanal, ‘Searching for Old Histories’ Social Movements and the Project of Writing History in Twentieth-Century Kerala. pp. 357-390, in, Raziuddin Aquil & Partha Chatterjee, ed. History in the Vernaculr, Ranikhet, Permanent Black, (2008), Third impression 2015
Pennington Paul J. CHRISTIAN BARRIERS TO JESUS: Conversations and Questions from the Indian Context, Pasadena, William Carey Library, 2017
Winter, Ralph D. 2008. “Living with Ill-Defined Words: A Response to Herbert Hoefer and Rick Love.” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 25(1): 38-41. Accessed Apr 25, 2016. http://www.ijfm.org/PDfs_IJFM/25_1_ Winter.pdf,
Appendix
…Christian theologian Arvind P. Nirmal redefines Christianity such that the Christian gospel is only Christian if it attends to the realities of oppressions. He writes,
In such a theological venture the primacy of the term “dalit” will have to be conceded against the primacy of the term “Christian” in the dominant theological primary. What this means is that the non-dalit world will ask us “What is Christian about Dalit theology?” Our reply will have to be: “It is the dalitness which is: Christian about Dalit theology.” { Arvind P. Nirmal, “Towards a Christian Dalit Theology,” in A Reader in Dality Theology, ed. Arvind P. Nirmal (Madras: Gurukul, 1991), 59}— Michelle Voss Roberts, Tastes of the Divine, New York, Fordham University Press, 2014 p. 122
…In the Hebrew bible, for instance, a hierarchy “is visible in the attributions of nouns and verbs of anger to kings and princes and not to servants or children, to men and not to women, and, most frequently, to YHWH and Elohim in relation to Israel, whereas it is never associated with Israel in relation to the deity.”{ Ellen van Wolde, “Sentiments as Culturally Constructed Emotions: Anger and Love in the Hebrew Bible,” Biblical Interpretation 16 (2008): 16} When subordinate persons express anger, it unsettles and challenges the status quo. The powerful have the most to lose. According to Dalit philosopher M. C. Raj, what dominant groups represent as divine anger “is actually human anger of the dominant world” that justifies and perpetuates domination. He condemns the tendency of these groups to ban expressions of anger, as well as their advice for victims to rely on God for retribution.—ibid. p. 137
…Persons from historically oppressed groups become mirrors of the fears of dominant groups.—ibid. p. 138
…Too often, the most vulnerable populations are completely ignored, or they (p.138) silence themselves for fear that they will be associated with these stereotypes. Judith Butler argues regarding this silencing effect, “Certain faces must be admitted into public view, must be seen and heard for some keener sense of the value of life, all life, to take hold.”{Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verson, 2004), xviii} As Dalits work to overcome their invisibility within the church and in wider Indian society, they also work to overcome negative representations by defining their own identity. These self-representations in art and writing take precedence here, with the hope that attention to Dalit faces, bodies, and voices can hold theology accountable to human diversity and vulnerability everywhere.—ibid. p. 139
The holistic Dalit arts observed in this chapter address their message not to an otherworldly salvation but to the rectification of injustices in this world. Appavoo theorizes the holistic scope of liberation as encompassing the economic, political, ideological, psychological, environmental, gender-related, as well as spiritual planes. For him, the “kingdom values’ of love, equality, and justice between all in this world” come to fruition “today, not exclusively in heaven or at some indefinite time in the future.”{Sherinian, Zoe. “Dalit Theology in Tamil Christian Folk Music,” A Transformed Liturgy by James Theophilus Appavoo.” In Popular Christianity in India: Writing Between the Lines, edited by Selva J. Raj and Corinne G. Dempsey, 233—253, 235-236. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002} Liberating fury refuses a binary of this world and the next
A holistic vision must ultimately overcome fury’s binary structure. While anger can build solidarity among the oppressed, the simple binaries that fuel work for justice must eventually be complexified. To avoid constructing a new fundamentalism on the basis of this anger, liberation movements must attend to spiritual wholeness and eventually to reconciliation. All are caught up together in a web of injury….—ibid. p. 154
A binary between oppressor and oppressed governs many of the liturgies. One collection explicitly contrasts “the two continuing stories of humankind.”{Dhyandchand Carr, “God and People in Liturgies,” in Vazhipaduvom (Dalit Liturgies) (Madhurai: Dalit Resource Centre, 2000), x. } The story of the dominant class presents itself as the universal story of divine anger against human sin, the appeasement of this anger, and human escape from punishment. By contrast, the story of the oppressed insists that God’s “anger, which is directed only against the dominant, will only subside when the dominant repent” and when Dalits accept this repentance.{ibid. xii.}—ibid. p. 162
…A. P. Nirmal writes that the emotional response to Dalit anger should be “a certain measure of ‘terror’….Our protest should be so loud that the walls of Brahmanism should come tumbling down.”
{Arvind P. Nirmal, “Towards a Christian Dalit Theology,” in A Reader in Dality Theology, ed. Arvind P. Nirmal (Madras: Gurukul, 1991), 62} The arts of protest awaken anger and activity in the oppressed, but for those who stand to lose even a small amount of their privilege, fear is a common appropriate response. Like the anger of the oppressed, the terror of the oppressor can bring injustice into view.—ibid. p. 164
…Can righteous anger, for example, be sustained without alternating with other, more sanguine, moods of the heart? Christian critics of activist movements often voice such anxieties about the revolutionary fury of oppressed groups. Dalit activist Mohan Larbeer associates this critique with the perspective of privileged persons who understand spirituality as solitude, meditation, and separation from society. Their anxiety belongs to the impulse to control rather than express anger, fear, and disgust. “Be satisfied with what you have,” they say. “Your kingdom is not here. Be patient.” In contrast, Larbeer declares that in Dalit activism, “the struggle itself gives the power to sustain.”{Mohan Larbeer, personal conversation with the author, Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, May 22, 2010}
The conditions of hope lie within the terrain of each of the negative emotions. Fury, terror, disgust, and compassion invite appraisal of injuries received, their causes, and appropriate responses. The very ability to become angry seems to “carry the conviction that something can be done.”{James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, Shadow of the Heart: A Spirituality of the Negative Emotions (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 56 cf. 53-57} Even when tragedy is overwhelming, a compassionate person may transform the situation simply by being present with the sufferer as a witness to their pain.—ibid. p. 169
…The missionaries would not have been able to penetrate the cumulative and comprehensive world view of caste Hinduism; thus the Dalits’ embrace of Christianity and their encompassing of the mission brought together what always lay beyond the gates of caste Hinduism. ‘Mission stumbled on its best long-term project.* Having set its heart on the conversion of Brahmins, it found, instead, that its future lay in the conversion of the outcastes and the tribals, exiled communities as they themselves were, fellow outsiders in India’s society.’ {Anthony Copley, 1997. Religions in Conflict: Ideology, Cultural Contact and Conversion in Late Colonial India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 255}—ibid. Conversion to Christianity in Tamil Nadu: Conscious and Constitutive Community Mobilization Towards a Different Symbolic World Vision. Sathianathan Clarke. Pp. 323-350, in, Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke, Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, and Meanings, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, [2003] Second impression Oxford India Paperbacks, 2008. p. 340
{* See an excellent study on this subject: A. Mathew, Christian Missions, Education and Nationalism: from Dominance to Compromise, 1870-1930, Delhi, Anamika Prakashan, 1988}
More unexpected and offensive for converts perhaps was the treatment they received from English Christians. The testimony of a recent convert in about 1909 expresses this issue squarely: ‘I was a new convert and had seen little of Christians. I had read in the New Testament the commandment of love and brotherhood … I knew that all Englishmen were Christians, and the missionary who baptized me treated me as a brother. And so in my ignorance, when I met an Englishman, at first, I would go up to him and say ‘I am a Christian’’ but I was received with cold looks and sometimes with abuse, and would be told to ‘get out.’ Here and there I met a true Christian; but (p.344) the majority I have met seem to regard me as belonging to a lower-caste … It seemed just ‘caste’ over again. I have suffered slights harder to bear from those who should have been my brother Christians than from my relations who outcasted me.’ {Eugene Stock, 1916. The History of the Church Missionary Society. Vol. IV, London: CMS Press, p. 173}
From the Dalit’s viewpoint what then warranted and sustained religious conversion to Christianity? I want to suggest that religious conversion in the case of Dalit communities involved entering a luminal world: a world of possibilities that is weaved out within a limbo between the real and the utopian. In the case of Dalit communities in Tamil Nadu such a conversion to Christianity also invoked the license to fabricate a new world-orientation from the utopias available in another religious world picture. This is done with the purpose both to subvert the world vision that was being discarded and set goals for a hoped for worldview in which the subjectivity of the converts was given a better chance to develop, if not thrive….—ibid. Conversion to Christianity in Tamil Nadu: Conscious and Constitutive Community Mobilization Towards a Different Symbolic World Vision. Sathianathan Clarke. Pp. 323-350, in, pp. 344-45
The ambiguity of conversion to the Christian symbolic world vision must not be ignored. As suggested, on the one hand, the religious worldview that was being jettisoned by the Dalits was nebulously held together under a construed version of Hinduism. It did result in combined, systemic, and concrete discrimination and disabilities for non-Brahmanic caste communities, Dalits in particular. On the other hand, as discovered in this essay, Dalits’ entry into the new symbolic vision of Christianity did not eventuate into a real world of equality, freedom and dignity. There were, however, theological resources in the newly embraced religion that could be used to construct such an alternate worldview….—ibid. Conversion to Christianity in Tamil Nadu: Conscious and Constitutive Community Mobilization Towards a Different Symbolic World Vision. Sathianathan Clarke. Pp. 323-350, in, p. 346
… ‘There is a little feeling on the part of some native Christians in Amritsar against the admission of Chuhras into the Church.’{H. U. Weitbrecht, 1886, ‘Work among the Chuhras,’ Church Missionary Intelligencer, October, p. 764} This anxiety over their status being dragged down by the inclusion of Chuhras into the Christian community was addressed at a meeting of the Central Church Committee in Narowal after the delegates had paid a visit to Fatehgarh. Weitbrecht offered a tantalizing summary description of what happened.
The result of this visit to Fatehgarh, and the discussion afterwards held in the Church Council, was a general agreement that no considerations of caste ought to prevent admission to full Christian rights; but that converts should be carefully separated from (p.364) degrading heathen habits and associations, and that social distinctions should be duly maintained.{Ibid. }—ibid. Christian Conversion in the Punjab: What has Changed? John C.B. Webster. Pp. 351-380, in, pp. 364-65
…In 1972 all the Christians in the Punjab were declared to be Backward Class. {Clarence O. McMullen et al., 1973. The Amristar Diocese: A Preliminary Survey, Batala: Christian Institute of Sikh Studies, p. 33} By the 1990s Punjabi Dalit Christians were agitating strongly against being denied Scheduled Caste benefits. {John C. B. Webster, 1991. ‘A Historical Rally for Dalit Christians,’ The Christian Century, 27 February, pp. 236-9}—ibid. Christian Conversion in the Punjab: What has Changed? John C.B. Webster. Pp. 351-380, in, p. 371
…For most Punjabi Christians the context in which they converted did not change; they continued to be poor, landless rural labourers under the thumb of landlords and moneylenders. Conversion could not change that, at least for the majority….since Independence the government has given Dalit Christians only token help at best and the same could be said for the churches as well….—ibid. Christian Conversion in the Punjab: What has Changed? John C.B. Webster. Pp. 351-380, in, p. 373
…While its priest is a Brahmin, the temple {of Rama, in Rampura} is maintained by contributions from the entire village. The headman’s lineage has not only made substantial contributions in the past but also takes an active interest in the temple’s activities. It, therefore, came as a surprise to me that the headman (along with other members of the dominant Okkaligas) refused to enter the sanctum sanctorum (in Kannada, garbha gudi) of the temple and urged Brahmin devotees to stand there while the puja was being performed. Had he wanted to enter the sanctum sanctorum no one, certainly not the Brahmin priest, who was heavily dependent upon him, would have prevented him. But the headman chose to remain outside. It did not occur to him that his full participation depended on his being on par with Brahmin devotees. Given this kind of ideology, it should be clear that the exclusion of the Harijans from the temple cannot be interpreted as exclusion from the village. The same can be said for other instances (p.29) of exclusion of Harijans. Condemnation of the exclusion of Harijans (or any other caste) from the point of view of a new ethical system is a distinct phenomenon, and as such ought not to be brought in while trying to understand the meaning of exclusion and inclusion in traditional system.—The Indian Village Myth and Reality (First published in Studies in Social Anthropology: Essays in Memory of Sir E.E. Evans-Prichard, J.H.M Beattie and g. Lienhardt (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1975). Pp.3-39, in M. N. Srinivas, Collected Essays, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, (2002) Paperbacks 2004. pp. 29-30
As a group, neither the Swineherds nor the Basket-makers were integrated with the village in the way the Harijans were. But the Basket-makers, Swineherds, and Smiths all made contributions to the Rama Navami festival, while Harijans, along with Brahmins, Lingayats, and Muslims did not.—ibid. The Indian Village Myth and Reality (First published in Studies in Social Anthropology: Essays in Memory of Sir E.E. Evans-Prichard, J.H.M Beattie and g. Lienhardt (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1975). Pp.3-39, in p. 33
During the early 1950s, the assertion of the equality of all citizens before the law, the abolition of untouchablity, affirmative action on a large scale for ‘the weaker sections of the society’, and the undertaking of a massive and comprehensive programme of development all produced a sense of euphoria particularly among the urban produced a sense of euphoria particularly among the urban intellectuals, who believed that their country was becoming modernized rapidly and that caste, along with untouchability, was on its way out.
It was in this context that I delivered, in January 1957, my presidential address on ‘Caste in Modern India’ to the Anthropology and Archaeology Section of the Indian Science Congress meeting in Calcutta. The speech was read for me because I was at the University of California at Berkeley on a Rockefeller Fellowship at that time. I argued in the address that caste was not on its way out but that it was playing an active role in politics, and that there was rivalry between important castes to capture political power and secure government jobs. I also pointed out that castes were being mobilized by politicians for securing votes….—ibid. PRACTISING SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN INDIA. Pp. 664-688, in, p. 683
…As caste as a system begins to break down, individual castes are likely to continue as they secure a variety of benefits for members in addition to giving them a sense of identity. As India becomes more urban and heterogeneity becomes the norm, ethnic—including caste—identities are likely to assume much greater importance.—ibid. PRACTISING SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN INDIA. Pp. 664-688, in, p. 684
During the early 1950s, the assertion of the equality of all citizens before the law, the abolition of untouchablity, affirmative action on a large scale for ‘the weaker sections of the society’, and the undertaking of a massive and comprehensive programme of development all produced a sense of euphoria particularly among the urban produced a sense of euphoria particularly among the urban intellectuals, who believed that their country was becoming modernized rapidly and that caste, along with untouchability, was on its way out.
It was in this context that I delivered, in January 1957, my presidential address on ‘Caste in Modern India’ to the Anthropology and Archaeology Section of the Indian Science Congress meeting in Calcutta. The speech was read for me because I was at the University of California at Berkeley on a Rockefeller Fellowship at that time. I argued in the address that caste was not on its way out but that it was playing an active role in politics, and that there was rivalry between important castes to capture political power and secure government jobs. I also pointed out that castes were being mobilized by politicians for securing votes….—ibid. PRACTISING SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN INDIA. Pp. 664-688, in, p. 683
….The texts of medieval ‘Bhakti’ remained for them instances of a reformism that was radically opposed to caste and religious prejudice. Such modernists embraced the contemporary dalit movement in the belief that it had in point of fact renewed an older ‘pre-modernist’ attack on the effete and decadent remnants of an older world. For them, the dalit recovery of the modern would place directly on track what mattered most to their sense of historical change, which was the hope that a secular, caste-free society would inaugurate in India a genuine modernity. The historical experience of the last few decades had considerably attenuated the already slender link between this elite modernism and its vanguardist notion of the modern. For one, the diverse tendencies of the dalit movement did not, as it turned out, foster the abandonment of ideas of caste and religion despite having won through the years a series of constitutional guarantees for affirmative discrimination in their favour—to the contrary, they have gone on to further exacerbate the identitarian climate of our times.— System and History in Rajwade’s Grammar for the Dnyaneswari. Milind Wakankar, pp. 209-249, in, Raziuddin Aquil & Partha Chatterjee, ed. History in the Vernaculr, Ranikhet, Permanent Black, (2008), Third impression 2015, p. 237
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