CASTE, COVID, CHRISTIANITY ? May 29th, 2020



Chennai city is known to embrace all those seeking refuge from social stigma or caste-related violence from towns and villages of Tamilnadu. Ostracised or hunted in their hometowns they come here to become anonymous cogs. But Covid lockdown has become hell for them.
Two instances which I came to know of personally in the last month of caste based struggles.
A young couple living in the city belonging to two different castes - one lower and another more lower. Away from relatives and safe in the city. The man has worked hard to provide and has been successful too .. he was inbetween jobs when Covid struck. Their daughter had just gone through a medical procedure which cost them their savings. They had shifted their home to be near the hospital - not many friends. They suddenly find themselves without money for rent and no relatives to turn too. They even do not have money for proper food. They are both educated and struggle to ask for money from others.
Another mixed caste young couple with a 11 month old baby in the city have both tested positive for Covid 19 . Strangely the little one is not accepted in the quarantine facility. And so this newly married couple have no family to turn to. They were desperately searching for someone to take care of their baby while they are quarantined.
I normally do not write about caste issues ... but how can i not anymore ?
- the caste based killings across Tamilnadu during lockdown
- a young man in a quarantine facility is kicking away the food prepared by a lower caste lady.
- migrant labourers - poor and lowest in the caste hierarchy are dying in the roads, railway tracks and stations.
So, I look back at my Christian roots - we who profess to love one another as ourselves - how do we respond to caste. Initially missionaries who came to India did not oppose the caste system. By 1800's the Great Awakening in the West led to an extraordinary zeal in missionary work. In India, this period saw the arrival of revolutionaries who did not bend down to the challenge of caste. In the American Madura Mission Jubilee Volume: 1834-1884 - it is recorded that the year 1847 - " is marked for the special measures taken by the mission for the removal of caste distinctions among Christians. During the year 72 persons were suspended from the churches on account of caste observance..." This means the missionaries did not mind sending away people who wanted to convert to Christianity unless they gave up caste practices. But Christians who had broken caste were not even considered as a human by their families. By 1893 some missionaries in Tuticorin started a Voluntary Association for the suppression of caste - they recommended giving up caste titles and encouraged mixed marriages . Ofcourse, these efforts were not successful. But there are pages and pages of discussions and declarations on caste by missionaries and native converts. Mind you .. not just ordinary arguments but solid debates with sound references to Manu and the works. And as time rolled, in the 1900's a European missionary himself is given a caste title - Pariah Andrew - because of his efforts to uplift the oppressed castes from the severe oppression and desolation.
But I wonder why Christians have not continued to try and remove this evil. We do not speak about it in our churches anymore. Some churches even practice caste differentiation. Maybe if we Christians who believe that God has made us all in His image had kept on talking about the evil of caste in our churches, in our schools, colleges and hospitals things would be different now.  We would have inspired a generation of people who rallied against caste atrocities ...Maybe we would not have had to see a viral video of a little boy trying to wake up his dead mother in a railway station.

We Christians believe as it is written in the Bible -  "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."  -  why are we still clinging on to the old idea of  caste through birth ?  Why have we not done away with this evil tradition of  caste ?
- Rhoda Alex - rhodalex@gmail.com

P.S: the first couple was helped by Muslim school friends - two months rent and provisions. A pastor was successful in finding help for the second couples 11 month old baby.

Credits : a lot of people have inspired me to keep on searching... Thank you Nivedita Louis,  Dr. P Dayanand (MCC) and my entire family.
photo: Christians in front of their church in Ikkadu (near Chennai) in1900's

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