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The Dalits are the “least of these.” India has, as most people know, a caste system. In that system Dalits are seen as nearly subhuman. The Dalits live in horrid conditions without safe drinking water or sanitation. When I traveled in Southern India we visited Dalit slums and villages, read stories in newspapers of massacres against Dalit people that occurred while we were there, and learned about Dalit liberation theology (a form of Christian theology that has great appeal to church leaders and Dalits). The tsunamis certainly didn’t do anything to improve their condition. But this report from Deutsche Presse-Agentur shows you that inhumanity has no bounds:
Stories of discrimination have poured out of several relief camps in Tamil Nadu, India's worst-affected state, which reported 7,932 of the country's 9,691 reported deaths.
More than 6,000 people died in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district, where dalits were reportedly thrown out of relief camps and forced to eat stale food.
"The dalits are being discriminated against by the fishermen. In many relief camps the government is not given them aid, saying the dalits have not been affected by the tsunamis," said Ravi Chandran of Village Development Society (VDS), a non-government organisation.
Chandran worked in Nagapattinam, where more than 91,000 people live in 96 relief camps, and Cuddalore district, where more than 24,000 people are crowded into 38 camps. He said dalits formed 10 per cent of the affected population.
"We sent a petition two days back to the police and state government to speed up aid for the dalits because they were not receiving anything. There has been no response," Chandran told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a telephone interview from Nagapattinam.
"What is worse is that both the police and the affected fishermen are not allowing our people to deliver food and water to the dalits. About four days back police severely beat up and then arrested a dalit for taking rice from an aid agency. They even demolished what was left of his house," Chandran claimed.
The article recounts many other stories of discrimination against Dalit people. The Church of South India and seminaries in Tamil Nadu (the state I visited) do an amazing amount of work to help the Dalit people organize against their oppressors. Not all Indians support the apartheid forced upon the Dalits. We were told by several church leaders that they hoped one day Americans would became as concerned about the Dalits as we were in fighting the apartheid system in South Africa.
Here are three steps that I recommend for those who want to help the Dalits:
First, learn more about their cause by visiting the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights web site.
Second, give money only to those aid organizations you trust will not enforce the caste system. Church World Church, for example, works with ecumenical partners throughout Southeast Asia that have taken an active role in supporting the Dalit cause.
Finally, contact the Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen by e-mail and ask him to promise that aid being sent from the United States will not be denied to the Dalit people. Also ask that he personally guaranty that the reports from Deutsche Presse-Agentur will be investigated and that those who have undertaken these acts of hatred will be held responsible.
