In January 2007 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concluded that Dalit women in India suffer from "deeply rooted structural discrimination." "Hidden Apartheid" records the plight of Dalit women and the multiple forms of discrimination they face. Abuses documented in the report include sexual abuse by the police and upper-caste men, forced prostitution, and discrimination in employment and the payment of wages.
Dalit children face consistent hurdles in access to education. They are made to sit in the back of classrooms and endure verbal and physical harassment from teachers and students. The effect of such abuses is borne out by the low literacy and high drop-out rates for Dalits.
70% of Christians in India are Dalits
India's 29 million Christians constitute only 2.3 percent of the country's population, making them the second largest religious minority in the country after Muslims. By conservative estimates, across denominations, nearly 70 percent of Christians are Dalits (formerly the untouchable caste).
In 2017, the Evangelical Fellowship of India documented 351 instances of violence against Christians, but activists and scholars believe that this is only a fraction of the actual violence as many cases go unreported.
This proliferation coincides with the social and political rise of Hindu nationalist organizations, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), from the peripheries to the center of Indian politics. The Hindu nationalist ideology, known as Hindutva, considers Christians as foreigners, intent on destroying the integrity of the nation primarily through conversions.
Following the historic political victory for the BJP in 2014, which propelled Narendra Modi to the prime ministership, 600 instances of violence against minorities were recorded in the first 100 days of the administration.
Since 1998, persecution against Christians in India has escalated. Churches have been burned, pastors are beaten, and nuns and women of the church are raped. In recent years, this specific persecution has increased even more. Church properties in one Indian state were taken over and the graves of the deceased were dug up and desecrated.
Dalit Liberation Sunday
Tellingly, Dalit Liberation Sunday will be observed across India on Nov. 9, recalling the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal.
The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), comprising Protestant and Orthodox Churches, and the CBCI has been jointly observing Dalit Liberation Sunday on the second Sunday of November.
Kandhamal is a district of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, formerly known as Orissa, where an orgy of violence descended upon the impoverished Christian minority in August 2008.
A series of riots led by radical Hindus left roughly 100 people dead, thousands injured, 300 churches and 6,000 homes destroyed, and 50,000 people displaced, many forced to hide in nearby forests where more died of hunger and snakebites.
The mobs had been incensed by rumors that Christians had killed a local Hindu holy man. (It later emerged that the holy man had actually been assassinated by Maoist guerillas in the area.)
Social exclusions of Dalits in the U.S. colleges
India Abroad wrote in March 2019 the Dalits face discrimination from their fellow Indians in US educational institutions:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
