By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, March 4, 2019: Thousands of Christians and Muslims are expected to join the national protest on March 12 in New Delhi demanding the Scheduled Caste (SC) status for their Dalit brethren.
The National Council of Dalit Christians (NCDC) is organizing the protest from 10 am to 4 pm at Jantar Mantar, said M Mary John, chairman, organizing committee of the national protest.
It is high time the SC status is granted to Dalit Christians and Muslims, he added.
A C Michael, a human rights activist, termed as absurdity that certain sections of Indians are denied their right to reservation in employment and educational institutes and other benefits just because they practice Christianity and Islam.
In 1935 the British, who were then ruling India, gave special privileges of reservations in government jobs and elected bodies to a number of low castes whose names were written down in a schedule. These castes were not demarcated by religion and hence included people following various religions such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Sikhism.
However, in 1950 a Presidential Order (paragraph 3, which is against the secular Constitution of India), took away those rights and conferred SC status only to Hindu Dalits saying that no person professing any other religion than Hinduism would be deemed to be a member of the Scheduled Caste. It was amended twice in 1956 and 1990 respectively to extend the SC status to Sikh Dalits and Buddhist Dalits.
“We have been demanding relentlessly for the deletion of this paragraph and extending SC status to the Christians and Muslims of SC origin. A civil Write Petition (No.180/204) was filed in the Supreme Court of India, challenging the Constitutional validity of the paragraph 3 of the Constitution (SC) Order 1950 and is still pending in the apex court awaiting appropriate response from the Union Government,” Mary John said.
The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Justice Renganatha Misra Commission) conducted a national study on the socio-economic and educational backwardness of Christians and Muslims of SC origin for the conferment of SC status to them and submitted positive report stating the backwardness of the Christians and Muslims of SC origin and recommending deletion of the said Paragraph 3 to extend SC status to Christians and Muslims of the SC origin.
The National SC Commission also endorsed the recommendation of the Misra Commission. The study by Prof. Sathis Despande of Delhi University for the Ministry of Minorities Affairs also positively recommended the conferment of SC status to Christians and Muslims of SC origin. Despite these recommendations to the Union Government, there was no positive action from the government so far, for addressing the issue or to file an appropriate reply to the apex court.
Several impending petitions by NCDC, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and other organizations in the apex court on the issue are also still pending awaiting the proper reply of the Union Government.
“In this background and in the light of the forthcoming general elections 2019, we are holding one more agitation in the form of a protest demanding that Union Government to reply to the Supreme Court of India on the Civil Write Petitions 180/2004 in the light of Justice Renganatha Misra Commission recommendations and the recommendations of the study of Ministry of Minority Affairs and extend SC status to the Christians and Muslims of SC origin by deleting paragraph 3 of the SC Order 1950,” Mary John said.
Leaders of political parties, Members of Parliament, Bishops and church heads, Dalit leaders and leaders of the Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims will address the protest.
Dalits are the group formerly known as untouchables. Christians and Muslims of SC origin have been demanding the right to be included in Scheduled Caste list since 1950. Christians and Muslims of SC origin were born in untouchable communities and still experience exclusion and stigma of untouchability. They are educationally and economically backward as their counterpart Hindu Dalits.