‘I am part of a collective awareness’
http://www.hindu.com/lr/2008/08/03/stories/2008080350110300.htm
NEW VOICES
'I am part of a collective awareness'
R. AZHAGARASAN
Dalit writer Bama talks about how caste informs and runs through all
aspects of life, including religion and how education is the key to
emancipation. Excerpts from an interview featured in her forthcoming
book, Vanmam.
Coming to your representation of "caste in Christianity", I see a
contradiction. Unlike your strong critique of Indian Christianity in
Karukku, in Vanmam you see Christianity as empowering, especially for
Parayars.
I wrote Vanmam in 2000. Karukku was written in 1992. During that time,
Dalit movements grew. A lot of Dalit writing has also been published.
Vanmam certainly shows the effect of these developments. The impact of
these changes can be seen in the Church also. Nowadays, it gets
involved in Dalit-related issues. The Jesuits especially… they give
priority to Dalits. Now the Church is doing something for the
development of us Dalits… not just financial. In fact, they named the
1990s as the "Dalit Decade" and came out with an action plan. For
instance, Dalits were given preference in jobs. You know, earlier,
this kind of thing was not there. In fact, Dalit girls were actively
discouraged from joining the sisterhood. Do you know that way back in
the 1950s, there were some French missionaries who even offered legal
aid to Dalits? The Dalits had a feeling that somebody was there to
guide them. In fact, there were lots of people in my own village who
were serving as bonded labourers. What the priest did was… he asked
them not to go to work. The landlords hired coolies from the next
village. If they didn't go for work, they would have to starve. But do
you know what the Dalits did? In order to make the landlords think
that they were living happily, these people carried sand in gunny bags
from the river as though they were carrying paddy. And they
deliberately walked through the streets of those landlords carrying
the sacks!
But in the way you look at caste in Christianity, I find a major shift
in Vanmam. You equate Parayars with Christians and Pallars with
Hindus. Doesn't this contradict what you yourself said in Karukku
about Christianity?
It could seem that way. But remember, the events I narrated in Vanmam
are limited to a particular village. So you cannot take it as a
generalised statement. This is the state of affairs in Kandampatti
village. Among Parayars there are a good number of Christians, and it
is not so among Pallars.
But you seem to be saying that after Parayars converted to
Christianity they left the Hindu mentality behind ... became social
revolutionaries.
To some extent this is true in Kandampatti village.
What about 'Pallar Christians'? Are you saying that even among Dalit
Christians, Pallars preserve their caste identity?
Very often it is caste, not religion, that is the basis of all things.
There are Nadar Christians and Udayar Christians...we label them as
"upper-caste" Christians. We are Pallar Christians and Parayar
Christians...we don't change. We don't even come together under one
umbrella as "Dalit Christians". Not only this, let us not forget that
even among Parayars, the Hindu Parayars and Christian Parayars play a
cat-and-mouse game. Here, even caste isn't a unifying factor. Anyhow,
Dalits get the benefit of education through the missionaries and
Christian institutions. Ultimately, as Ambedkar said, education plays
a key role in Dalit emancipation. The next important thing is to move
out of one's own place. Pallars are in the list of Scheduled Castes,
so they get educational opportunities and come up in life. Parayars
don't have such opportunities. This is because many of them converted
to Christianity and so became "Backward Castes". Of the Dalits who
converted, Parayars form the largest number, more than the Pallars.
So, these Parayars have to rely mostly on Christian institutions for
education. From this point of view, I think Christianity has done a
lot.
But I wonder whether one can generalise. We need to distinguish
Christianity from the work of individual missionaries. Because, it is
individual missionaries who have done a lot.
I think your question itself is irrelevant today. Because you cannot
compare those missionaries with the present-day missionaries. They are
miles apart. Those missionaries worked on various aspects like
literature, society, the economy, and even legal aspects. They had
respect for people. They really wanted to uplift them. Today, most of
the missionaries do not have that attitude. They are interested only
in uplifting their own kith and kin. Some are interested in
accumulating wealth. Today, the charisma of the Church itself is gone.
Of course, there may be some exceptions.
In the case of Karukku, I think, the context of Dr Ambedkar's birth
centenary celebrations plays a major role. Do you think Karukku would
have got the same kind of response if it had been published in the
1980s?
No, I don't think so. My brother always told me, "Nobody would have
bothered to look at your book, if it had been published ten years
before." That's true. There was a context for it.
