Dalit Theology

Introduction:

The people we are dealing with have until recently been nearly a forgotten people a neglected people or perhaps a no people. The word ‘Dalit’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘dal’, meaning ‘oppressed, broken. They are the oppressed and exploited people, deprived of their human dignity, worthy only to be demanded of all menial service and who can be done away with as easily as animals. Oppression and abasement reduced them to their present grim reality of social degradation, cultural alienation, economic impoverishment and political powerlessness.  Fear, insecurity, inferiority complexes, hopelessness and despair have enslaved them. They have been the targets of frequent attacks of retribution and violence at the hands of the upper castes. As far as traditional Hindu religion is concerned, they are called ‘Sudras.’ Socially speaking, they  are called “Untouchables.” (the Asparshya), and legally speaking, they are called “Scheduled Castes” (the Anusuchit Jatis).

Dali Quest for Liberation:

The religious quest of the Dalits has always  favoured cults and religiouns which propagated anti-caste (anti-Brahmin), egalitarian, monotheistic ideals and practices. The ultimate goal of this liberation cannot be simply the gaining of the rights, the reservations and the privileges. The goal is the realization of their full humanness or conversely their full divinity, the ideal of the ‘Imago Dei’, the ‘Image of God’, in them. To use another Biblical metaphor, their goal is the ‘glorious liberty of the Children of God.’ This ideal leads us to the question of God.

The Question of God :

What kind of God are they talking about? What kind of divinity does Dalits Theology envision? A non-dalit deity cannot be the God of dalits. So, they rejected Rama – the deity whom millions of Hindu worship and pray to. Rama is described as Purushottama and Maryada Purush but Dalits have rejected him. The story goes that Rama killed Shambuka – a dalit because Shambuka had undertaken a life of prayer and asceticism. The dominant religious tradition denied to the Dalits the right to pray. Therefore, Rama simply killed Shambuka and performed dharma – a religious act. This is why Dalits have rejected Rama. For Dalits, he is a killer, God-killer and murderer of Dalits. But the God whom Jesus Christ revealed is a Dalit God. He is a servant God, God who serves. Service of others has always been the privilege of Dalit communities. Therefore, to speak of a Servant God is to recognize him and identify him as a truly Dalit deity. The Gospel writers identified Jesus with the Servant of God, of Isaiah (Isa. 53:2f). The language used by the Prophet Isaiah to describe the servant is the language used for God – the God of Dalits, the Dalit God.

To Re-assert Humanity:

The Dalits want to reassert their humanity against those who treat them as sub-human. They are attracted by the forces that imbibe them with a sense of dignity and self-respect that they have been denied for centuries, and by the power in the struggle to regain their lost humanity. They believe that the religion of Jesus Christ offers a new identity and equality within the caste system, but outside the Hindu fold. Hence, their option to Christianity. For the Dalits, Christianity is not primarily a religion propagating an ideology as much as an ideology becoming a religion. The life of Jesus Christ is ideology in practice. That practice, that ideology gave rise to the religion of Christianity and it is this ideology of Jesus Christ that attracts the Dalits.

Jesus proclaimed and struggled to usher in the Kingdom of God, and invited others to believe the arrival of the Kingdom of God in Himself. The Kingdom values include respect for the dignity of the human person, the concern for the weaker sections of humanity, the excluded, the widows, the tax collectors, the publicans, the sinners, etc.  It is this ideology that was practiced by Jesus and this ideology has caught the imagination of the Dalits. It is rooted in the humanity of Jesus, the Word Incarnate. The Dalits are attracted by the inclusive humanistic approach rooted in the incarnation.

Identification of Jesus with Dalit Context:

In the incarnation, the Dalits see the identification of Jesus with their own context, becoming one among them, and in the suffering and death of Jesus they perceive reflected their own suffering and death. The death of Jesus is the process of elimination adopted by the higher castes. Jesus becomes part of the Dalit struggle. Like a Dalit, Jesus becomes a servant. The struggle of Jesus to change the existing state of affairs fired the imagination of Dalits. Because, Jesus’ struggle was against the practice of untouchability prevalent in his own Jewish society. This has aspired the Dalits to struggle against the discrimination and oppression they are subjected to.

Justice and Love of God:

Jesus allowed himself to be polluted in public when he touched the untouchables of Israel (Mt. 8:2-3). When touched by a women suffering from hemorrhage, Jesus did not go purification rituals (Mt.9:20). Jesus, the friend of the ritually impure gives new definition to the laws of purity, keeping the justice and love of God as supreme. “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them,” (Mt. 7:12) is  the grounding principle. The urgent mission of Jesus is to touch the untouchables and to be touched by them. This attracted the untouchable Dalits.

God as the Abba of All:

The “abba” experience of Jesus in the context of stratified society was counter-cultural. Jesus’ teaching of God as the “abba” of all is a judgment against all anthropological discriminations. Koonthanam asserts, “People are experienced not just as members of an exclusive tribe, or a separated clean caste, but as members of an open family.”

Jesus not only does become poor but he identified himself with the outcasts by associating with them. His all-inclusive table fellowship was a dismantling of all sorts of socially discriminating taboo. Jesus is the friend of the outcasts and his ministry was an ongoing movement from the center to the periphery, which continues until he reaches the ultimate periphery when he dies utterly poor and totally an outcast on the cross.

Conclusion:

In the light of what has been said, we can reflect on the plight of the Dalits who are becoming increasingly aware of their disinheritedness and uprootedness and of the domination they suffered at the hand of the higher castes. The Dalits who have been crucified with Christ and have been sharing in the shameful death of Jesus on the cross outside the city, are longing to rise to a new life as the children of the One Father. India’s past search for God is matched today by the search of its Dalits for their full humanity.