A re­cent re­port of a study con­duct­ed across 1,655 vil­lages in the In­di­an state of Gu­jarat, rep­re­sent­ing 98,000 Dal­its, re­vealed the shock­ing fact that 97 per cent of them feel that they are un­wel­come at Hin­du tem­ples, re­li­gious gath­er­ings and pub­lic dis­cours­es on scrip­ture. Re­searchers did not find a sin­gle vil­lage that was free from the prac­tice of un­touch­a­bil­i­ty. ("No tem­ple en­try for Dal­its in Gu­jarat," Times of In­dia, De­cem­ber 7, 2009). Such ex­clu­sion is nei­ther in­fre­quent nor lim­it­ed to Gu­jarat. The BBC News ("Fury over south In­dia tem­ple ban," Oc­to­ber 15, 2009) re­port­ed an in­ci­dent of stone throw­ing to protest Dal­its en­ter­ing a tem­ple near Vedaranyam in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Last month the High Court of Chen­nai is­sued an or­der, against the wish­es of tem­ple trustees, that a tem­ple pro­ces­sion pass through a Dalit com­mu­ni­ty in the Vil­lipu­ram Dis­trict. Dalit (op­pressed) is the name pre­ferred by those who have been rel­e­gat­ed to the low­est rungs of the caste lad­der and re­gard­ed as un­touch­able by mem­bers of up­per castes. Dal­its con­sti­tute around 20 per cent of the In­di­an pop­u­la­tion.

Al­though the ex­clu­sion of Dal­its from places of Hin­du wor­ship ought to be a mat­ter of deep con­cern and dis­tress, there is hard­ly a rip­ple of protest in the sea of Hin­du com­pla­cen­cy. Shut­ting the doors of Hin­du tem­ples to Dal­its stands in be­wil­der­ing con­trast to the anx­i­ety in oth­er re­li­gious tra­di­tions about dwin­dling num­bers and the ex­pen­di­ture of con­sid­er­able re­sources to at­tract the faith­ful. It should not sur­prise that those de­barred from Hin­du sanc­tums en­ter, in sig­nif­i­cant num­bers, the open and invit­ing doors of oth­ers.

Those in In­dia and out­side who are vo­cif­er­ous op­po­nents of re­li­gious con­ver­sion must un­der­stand and ac­knowl­edge the Dalit ex­pe­ri­ence of the Hin­du tra­di­tion as op­pres­sive and negat­ing their dig­ni­ty and self-worth.

Con­ver­sion is a chal­lenge for Hin­dus to con­sid­er the re­la­tion­ship be­tween re­li­gious prac­tice and sys­temic op­pres­sion. Ex­clu­sion from tem­ples is on­ly one man­i­fes­ta­tion of such op­pres­sion. It trou­bles deeply al­so that, with no­table ex­cep­tions, the prin­ci­pal voic­es of protest over ex­clu­sion are not those of Hin­du lead­ers. In the case of an­ti-Dalit vi­o­lence in the town of Vedaranyam, re­ferred to above, the protests were led by sup­port­ers of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of In­dia�Marx­ist. In oth­er cas­es, sec­u­lar-mind­ed hu­man rights ac­tivists are at the fore­front of the ag­i­ta­tion on be­half of the Dal­its. Ear­li­er this year, Navin Pil­lay, UN Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights, con­demned caste as negat­ing the hu­man rights prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion and called for a UN con­ven­tion to out­law dis­crim­i­na­tion based on caste.

The re­sponse of si­lence from Hin­dus may be in­ter­pret­ed as sup­port for bar­ring Dal­its from places of wor­ship. Even more im­por­tant­ly, in­dif­fer­ence gives val­i­da­tion to the wrong im­pres­sion that the Hin­du tra­di­tion has no the­o­log­i­cal ground or core for chal­leng­ing the hu­man in­equal­i­ty that is at the root of the Dalit os­traci­sa­tion and op­pres­sion. The as­sump­tions of hu­man in­equal­i­ty that ex­plain the con­tin­u­ing per­sis­tence of un­touch­a­bil­i­ty need an ur­gent, vig­or­ous and un­am­bigu­ous the­o­log­i­cal re­pu­di­a­tion orig­i­nat­ing from the non-ne­go­tiable heart of the Hin­du tra­di­tion. Al­though Hin­duism is ad­mit­ted­ly di­verse, its ma­jor tra­di­tions are unan­i­mous in af­firm­ing the equal ex­is­tence of God in every be­ing. "God," the Bha­gavadgi­ta pro­claims, "lives in the heart of all be­ings." This core the­o­log­i­cal teach­ing must be­come the ba­sis for the as­ser­tion of the equal dig­ni­ty and worth of every hu­man be­ing and the mo­ti­va­tion for chal­leng­ing and trans­form­ing the op­pres­sive struc­tures of caste that, in re­al­i­ty, de­ny and vi­o­late the lu­mi­nous pres­ence of God in all.

Al­though every un­just ex­pres­sion of caste needs to be de­nounced, the shut­ting of tem­ple doors to peo­ple plead­ing for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wor­ship chal­lenges, in a spe­cial way, the mean­ing and le­git­i­ma­cy of Hin­duism as a re­li­gious tra­di­tion. For this rea­son, Hin­dus must com­mit them­selves with tire­less de­ter­mi­na­tion to the work of wel­com­ing Dal­its in­to every Hin­du place of wor­ship. Such work must be seen as fun­da­men­tal to Hin­du iden­ti­ty and the mean­ing of be­long­ing to the com­mu­ni­ty of Hin­dus. While we must com­mend and sup­port Hin­du lead­ers and move­ments work­ing al­ready for the well­be­ing of Dal­its and their equal­i­ty and dig­ni­ty, we must recog­nise al­so that many Hin­du lead­ers may not be at the fore­front of such a re­li­gious­ly in­spired move­ment. They are the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the priv­i­leges of caste and im­mune to the pain of those who live at the mar­gins. All Hin­dus who un­der­stand the con­tra­dic­tion be­tween teach­ings cen­tred on God's em­bod­i­ment in every hu­man be­ing and the ex­clu­sion of peo­ple from places of wor­ship must em­brace this cause.

Hin­dus set­tled out­side of In­dia who en­joy the priv­i­leges of liv­ing in free so­ci­eties and the pro­tec­tion of the law against un­equal and un­just treat­ment, have spe­cial oblig­a­tions in this mat­ter. They need to lift their voic­es in protest against prac­tices in the name of Hin­duism that den­i­grate hu­man be­ings. They must en­sure that Hin­du lead­ers, and es­pe­cial­ly those who trav­el of­ten to the West and who are the re­cip­i­ents of their do­na­tions and rev­er­ence, hear their voic­es. They must make clear the un­ac­cept­abil­i­ty of re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion and de­mand that lead­ers re­nounce si­lence and in­dif­fer­ence and be­come ac­tive ad­vo­cates for change. Every Hin­du leader must be chal­lenged to take a stand in this mat­ter. The Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia spec­i­fies: "The State shall not dis­crim­i­nate against any cit­i­zen on grounds of re­li­gion, race, caste, sex, place of birth." Con­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal mea­sures, as nec­es­sary as these are, have not and will not elim­i­nate all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on caste in­equal­i­ty.

Le­gal mea­sures can nev­er cause the joy­ous em­brace of all that fol­lows from awak­en­ing to God's pres­ence in each heart. Re­li­gious vi­sion and wis­dom can be the source of such trans­formed re­la­tion­ships. Hin­duism needs an un­equiv­o­cal the­o­log­i­cal procla­ma­tion that com­ple­ments con­sti­tu­tion­al law by re­pu­di­at­ing caste in­jus­tice and that com­mits Hin­dus to the equal worth of all hu­man be­ings. Open­ing the doors of all Hin­du tem­ples to Dal­its is an im­por­tant step, an ur­gent re­li­gious mat­ter and an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Hin­du tra­di­tion, in our time, to de­fine it­self. Let this be our col­lec­tive Hin­du res­o­lu­tion in 2010.

Prof Anan­tanand Ram­bachan

Pro­fes­sor and Chair

Re­li­gion De­part­ment

Saint Olaf Col­lege

ram­bacha@sto­laf.edu